Some of the moments missed from Chelsea's dramatic draw with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday evening as Calum McFarlane led his side to an unlikely point
08:00, 05 Jan 2026
Pep Guardiola
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Pep Guardiola during Chelsea's draw with Manchester City(Image: Oli Scarff/AFP)
It is probably the one fixture you do not want when you are in the middle of a manager turnover. Manchester City away, just a few days after Enzo Maresca departed Chelsea in dramatic fashion.
Calum McFarlane was the man trusted to deliver the goods for the Blues, taking the job on an interim basis and putting his work with the Under-21s on hold. It was an opportunity for McFarlane that was too good to turn down. Put it this way: a year ago, McFarlane was preparing Southampton's Under-18s for an FA Youth Cup tie at Fleetwood.
Fast forward 12 months and he took on the greatest to ever do it, by McFarlane's own admission, at the Etihad Stadium. Pep Guardiola looked rattled in stoppage time, furious even, and that was before Enzo Fernandez snatched a dramatic late winner for the visitors in the snowy Manchester. That in itself speaks volumes of how well Chelsea did. They fought for McFarlane.
He met some of them for the first time on Friday, yet they were prepared to leave it all on the Etihad pitch for their temporary boss. Guardiola found himself unsettled with how Chelsea were hanging in there at 1-0 down, ready to pounce if an opportunity came their way late on. And it did.
It set off pandemonium in the away end when Fernandez struck at the third time of asking to beat Gianluigi Donnarumma. Those Chelsea supporters were in fine voice all evening-long, and given the circumstances, you have to take your hats off to them. Not only was it a turbulent week for the club off the pitch but it was also a 5:30pm kick-off on a Sunday evening in freezing cold conditions where public transport was affected throughout the day.
They were there to support the team, and they did that throughout the 90 minutes, but they were also keen to make a point against the current owners. Chants of Roman Abramovich's name happened on three occasions, perhaps more, during Chelsea's draw with City, with some supporters unhappy with the model at the club right now.
This will not stop anytime soon, either, with a large group of fans planning a pre-match protest ahead of Chelsea's home clash with Brentford later in the month. Earlier in the week, a group of supporters published a statement online signalling their intent to protest against Behdad Eghbali and the sporting directors outside Stamford Bridge on January 17.
Chelsea will have a new head coach in place by then, with the club closing in on the appointment of Liam Rosenior. The 41-year-old Strasbourg boss is set to switch Ligue 1 for the Premier League in the very near future and arrived in London last night (Sunday) to finalise the move, football.london understands.
Rosenior was flying while Chelsea were playing but there's no doubt the soon-to-be head coach will watch the game back at a later date. Once he does, he will be encouraged by the performance of Andrey Santos, who came on at half-time for the Blues and made a real difference in Manchester.
McFarlane made a couple of alterations in terms of Chelsea's shape at the break, while bringing Santos on for his Brazilian compatriot Estevao Willian. "So we didn't expect them to shape up the way they did in the first-half," the interim Chelsea head coach said on the changes.
"With the No.6 on the top line, we prepared slightly differently. So then they had a lot of control and we were getting pinned back. With Estevao and Pedro [Neto] getting pinned back to defend in a back five at times, which means that they have so much control and so much rhythm.
"So that's not how we wanted the game to look. So we made a change at half-time to go more man-for-man against the ball and to be able to get more pressure and disrupt their rhythm and hopefully force them to go a little bit longer.
"I also think Andrey Santos coming on at half-time and moving Enzo up one. I thought Andrey was exceptional. I thought he really, really controlled the middle of the pitch. So I think in terms of in possession and out of possession, the shape change really helped us and the sub we made."
Rosenior has worked with Santos before. The Brazil international spent last season on loan at Strasbourg - making 34 appearances under Rosenior for the French club, scoring 11 goals and producing five assists in the process. An impressive record, with the majority of those goal contributions came with Santos playing as a central midfielder with the license to roam and attack.
On Sunday evening, however, Santos was used essentially as a No.6, often filling in at centre-back when Benoit Badiashile would attack the ball. Rosenior could not have spoken more glowingly about the Chelsea star during their time together in France.
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Speaking just a couple of months after Santos moved to Strasbourg, Rosenior said: "He is one of a kind and I love him. He is probably the player who I shout at most in training. But he is a player I enjoy working with a lot as well. He is showing some really positive moments for us."
Santos will be hoping for more game time under Rosenior, if/when he is appointed as the new Chelsea head coach. Under Maresca this season, Santos made 26 appearances in all competitions but only eight of those came from the start.