Lampard and Terry fear Grant will leave them out in the cold

You couldn't help wondering whether the pair who were once the most untouchable of the untouchables really did feel bomb proof any more.

Captain Terry, who always stops for a word, clearly didn't feel like talking after a night spent warming the subs' bench in the Karaiskaki Stadium while Lampard, despite offering a professional stiff upper lip, couldn't exactly hide his frustration that he'd been handed only an eight-minute cameo at the end of a night when he must secretly have thought his old familiar inspiration had been urgently required.

Yet as Lamps was saying all the right, upbeat pearls about being desperate not to miss Sunday's Carling Cup Final against Spurs, Avram Grant was offering neither of his two icons any guarantees.

"I am always asked about the players I leave out but I'm the manager and it's my job to make these difficult decisions," reckoned the coach. "I will continue to make them for the benefit of the team and it will happen again and again."

Somehow, this felt like the closing ceremony of the Jose Mourinho "untouchables" era because you can be sure the Special One, even when recognising that the pair had only recently returned from injuries, wouldn't have dreamed of entering last night's tie without his favourite English soldiers.

But will the Israeli be tough enough to take the ultimate in difficult decisions by not picking either for a Wembley final? We may get an idea on Sunday of just how much Grant is his own man.

He could reasonably argue that his gamble in resting them last night paid off because Chelsea still emerged with a satisfactory result which, allied to Olympiacos's fabled stage-fright in English stadia and Stamford Bridge's nigh impregnability, should in a fortnight see them progress to the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the fourth time in five years.

Indeed, such is the squad's strength now that, even when offering up what Grant felt was their most disjointed European performance under his stewardship, they still managed to earn a draw with some comfort against technically well-equipped opposition in a stadium where the deafening red-decked home support made them feel they'd stepped into a mini-Anfield.

The counter-argument is that without Terry and Lampard, the driving force which could might have killed off the tie was missing. Even enjoying the lion's share of possession, Didier Drogba and Michael Essien were so rusty, Joe Cole so out of sorts and Florent Malouda so ineffective that the game was just crying out for Lampard's earlier introduction.

Okay, so Grant did eventually plump for an intriguing, 15-minute experiment by combining Drogba, Nicolas Anelka on the left and Salomon Kalou on the right but, though Anelka was sparky enough, it was all too late. When in the 92nd minute, Kalou's control let him down as he was presented with the best of the game's precious few chances, Chelsea couldn't complain. As Joe Cole put it, they've temporarily lost the flow.

They better rediscover it quickly by Sunday. Michael Ballack, their most creative force again, is not alone in believing Terry and Lampard must be back for that one.

"They're still very important players for us," said the German. "You have to be careful when you've come back from injury - you can't play every game straight away and both JT and Lamps had played on Saturday. So it was a decision from the coach with a big game coming up."

But they're all big games for Chelsea now and, as Lampard reiterated, the key to every successful side he's ever played in is a settled line-up. It sounded like a gentle nudge to Grant that Chelsea can't afford too much Benitez-like tinkering.

Yet if the Israeli can find that precarious balance between rotation and continuity, there's a feeling of genuine anticipation among the squad that the quest for four titles, which foundered last year under the weight of weariness and injuries, is much more realistic now.

"I know just how difficult it is," said Ballack. "I once came close to four titles in a season when I was at Bayer Leverkusen and ended up finishing second in all of them! But it's a dream to win every title because nobody has ever done it before. I'm happy to play for a club which tries to win everything by playing with a very strong team every time.

"We're eight points behind Arsenal and that's a gap not easy to be closed but we have fantastic potential because everybody is fit now. If you see our squad, it's unbelievable."

What would feel most unbelievable, though, would be Chelsea winning their first final in the Abramovich era without a meaningful contribution from either Lampard or Terry. They warmed up before the game last night, absent-mindedly passing the ball to each other, perhaps feeling for the first time they were surplus to requirements.

It neither looked nor felt right - but it would feel a lot stranger underneath the Wembley Arch.