Will Chelsea manager Avram have the last laugh?

Furiously he begins throwing open doors to possible hiding places but when he flings open a high cupboard, a heavy box falls out hits him on the head and kills him.

In heaven, he is busily explaining this to a new acquaintance when he is interrupted by another man, who says: "Yes, and if you had looked in the fridge we would both be alive."

It is one of Avram Grant's jokes.

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Two of a kind: Rafa Benitez (left) and Avram Grant give their orders as the tension mounts

At Anfield the joke was on poor John Arne Riise and Grant, who has a reputation for jests in Israel where they have large refrigerators, will have been mightily relieved.

Maybe, he doesn't have a UEFA Pro Licence but he has a Jackie Mason routine.

The problem is, it's a Jose Mourinho routine he needs.

Grant's character has been riddled with bullets in the five days since he satisfied his own sense of humour with a 'yes-no' game at Goodison Park, when a deluge of win and he left those perched at the top of Chelsea's power pyramid distinctly unamused.

Back on Merseyside and those who don't buy the stats which say Grant's record is better than Mourinho's were searching for evidence to suggest the Israeli might survive in his job.

Win this one and at least the 'What would Jose have done?' questions might cease.

He had no shortage of well-wishers, at least in public.

John Terry voiced the support of the players on the eve of the game. Even Rafa Benitez, also under pressure in a slightly different way, offered his sympathies.

"I don't believe Avram has received the credit he deserves," wrote Benitez in the matchday programme. "They are fighting in the league right up to the end, reached the Carling Cup final and are in the semi-finals of the Champions League. That tells me Avram is doing something right."

Benitez and Mourinho once turned a missing handshake into one of the longest running feuds in English football but this is a logical argument from the Liverpool boss.

The issue it avoids is the charisma missing since the managerial change at Stamford Bridge.

Through the exit with Mourinho and his overcoat and his Latino backroom team went much of the flair and style which gave Chelsea their west London swagger. With this stripped away, it has become clearer than ever what a functional team had been built.

At Anfield, Joe Cole was the only player in blue who would be classed as a creative talent. Unfortunately, when the first chance came his way in the 21st minute, this escaped him. An attempted karate kick volley saw the ball dribble harmlessly from his toe. Cole clutched his face.

Early in the second half and he was sacrificed for the hard-running of Salomon Kalou.

Frank Lampard and Michael Ballack, the twin attacking forces from midfield, are finishers not creators.

Lampard was understandably subdued after a week at the bedside of his mother, who is seriously ill.

Ballack's workrate and technique was as high as ever but he spent more time defending his own goal than attacking Pepe Reina's.

As for Florent Malouda, well, in the words of a Chelsea press officer: let's not go there. For a fleeting moment he looked like he might be the hero as he jinked into the penalty area but it was not to be.

Glance through Chelsea's team and there are no shortage of heroes; giant men with great mental strength and self-belief; incredible defenders like Ricardo Carvalho or king of the water-carriers Claude Makelele. They will fight all day and all night, which was just as well after this precious draw.

Grant's dry wit and jokes about men in fridges cannot make up for a personality vacuum at the club.

Nor can this set of players, bought to fit into Mourinho's system, make up for it with their football. The Chelsea boss needs a summer of shopping for this. No one can count January.

Asking him to reshape a team in the winter is like nipping out in your lunch hour for an image makeover.

Whether he gets this is far from certain. Dirk Kuyt's goal moments before half time did not help. As ever, Grant's expression gave nothing away.

The arms were flung up in the air and landed down by the sides of his hunched body.

But he is very much in this tie after the late leveller, still only a step from the final, which started with a home draw against Rosenborg and internal bloodletting.

He can still do something Mourinho never did for this club.

Look in the fridge, the champagne might be on ice.