When Michael Emenalo was Chelsea’s technical director, he formulated a recruitment plan at the behest of the club’s owner Roman Abramovich: find a new spine to the team. Find a new English spine to replace Ashley Cole, John Terry and Frank Lampard. Create a new English spirit.

In fact Emenalo followed the Russian billionaire’s orders to the letter with direct replacements earmarked. A new left-back? That would be Luke Shaw. A new centre-half? That would be John Stones. A new goal-scoring midfielder? That would be Ross Barkley.

Bids were eventually made for all three over a period of time. Only Barkley was signed although, last January, few were willing to believe he could be Lampard’s successor and even the £15 million transfer fee committed to sign him appeared something of a risk.

Now, as Chelsea prepare to face Lampard’s Derby County in the last 16 of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday evening, does it appear so far-fetched?

It will be a night rightly dominated by Lampard’s return, with him having already impressed in his fledgling managerial career at high-flying Derby. Barkley might play but it is no longer the case that his best hope of first-team appearances at Chelsea is in their League Cup team. He is moving beyond that as he confirmed with an authoritative performance in the defeat of Burnley. Now it is about sustaining that.