A few years ago a Chelsea manager privately complained about a text message he received after a match from someone in a position of influence around the club. It questioned why he had asked a big-name player who was on the substitutes bench to warm up – but then did not bring him on. After all, it was raining. And there was no need for getting him wet if he was not going to be used.

It may be apocryphal, and it may have suited the manager’s purposes to suggest it, but it was a story that was doing the rounds after he was sacked. And, given this is Chelsea, the club that once employed Avram Grant as its manager, that vowed it would never again hire Jose Mourinho, before doing just that, and who actually sacked the amiable and amenable Carlo Ancelotti for finishing second the year after he won the double, then anything would appear possible.

Kepa Arrizabalaga’s refusal to be substituted during Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, fits into that category of anything being possible at Chelsea. Despite the attempts to explain it away as all some kind of misunderstanding it left the usual perception, it reinforced the familiar argument, that there is a culture at the club that suggests the manager is the most disposable employee rather than the most valuable. And that he is not in control.