By Stacy Boit,

Liam Rosenior’s thoughts would have been worth a lot more than a penny as Chelsea’s triumphant players took the acclaim of their supporters inside Wembley after reaching the FA Cup final.

Chelsea’s 1-0 win against a disappointing Leeds United showed much of the best of a talented group of players – but also some of the worst given their desperate efforts that led to Rosenior being shown the door after only 106 days.

If Rosenior was watching this scrappy semi-final, decided by Enzo Fernandez’s first-half header, he would be right to question where all that fight and determination on show at Wembley were when he was at the helm.

These are the basics any head coach should be able to take as a given, but were absent under Rosenior during a desperate run of five league losses without scoring, a fate that had not befallen Chelsea since 1912.

Here, with an FA Cup final against Manchester City back at Wembley on 16 May as the prize, those qualities miraculously – or perhaps predictably – returned, allowing Chelsea to grind out victory.

Chelsea’s players, and their derided owners BlueCo, now have the opportunity to save a shambolic season with silverware, a trick the club have performed often in the past