Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly looked down from his Stamford Bridge executive box to watch the fourth manager of his dysfunctional tenure standing in the technical area opposite.
Mauricio Pochettino is the latest incumbent charged with making sense of the scattergun and unstructured strategy employed by Boehly and his partner Behdad Eghbali over the last year.
And while it is far too early to make any pronouncements on whether Pochettino will fare any better than his predecessors Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter - let's not count Frank Lampard because he was little more than an unsuccessful seat warmer - there were at least signs that encouraged all those associated with, and wearied by, the recent chaos at Chelsea.