Forget the Lord Mayor’s Show. Chelsea’s return to competitive football following the Club World Cup in the United States was marked by a distinct lack of fanfare.

There were no performances by Robbie Williams in a white tracksuit, no brass bands trying to outshine fireworks, and no appearances by Donald Trump.

Instead, Chelsea had Law 13 to thank for their fortunate break. Due to this specific rule stating that Marc Guehi stood too close to the Chelsea wall when Eberechi Eze took his free-kick past Robert Sanchez, Enzo Maresca’s team avoided a potential loss in their Premier League opener at Stamford Bridge.

On Friday, Chelsea will meet West Ham at the London Stadium, with Maresca optimistic that his team will have shaken off any residual effects from their previous outing.

‘We could have been more effective on counter attacks and defended better, but it’s only the season’s first game,’ he stated. ‘Gradually, we will improve step by step.’

‘They (Palace) played about eight games (in pre-season). We played just two. We tried our best. We didn’t lose a clean sheet.’

This is indeed accurate. Although Chelsea prevented Palace from scoring, it required VAR’s James Bell advising referee Darren England to rule out Eze’s early goal—a decision based on a regulation unfamiliar to many at Stamford Bridge.

But watching Chelsea struggle to stitch together attacking sequences thereafter, you could not help thinking back to what was said during the pre-match press conference at Cobham on Friday.

Maresca had underlined the importance of Levi Colwill. Not only in how he defends but in how he is used to build attacks from the back with the line-breaking passes he is capable of producing.

That is why Chelsea’s head coach wants to sign a suitable centre back this month with Colwill’s ACL injury set to sideline him for the foreseeable. Despite Chelsea having more central defenders than many of their rivals, Maresca believes no like-for-like replacement exists within his squad, and he was further hamstrung here by losing Tosin Adarabioyo to a knock in training.

Chelsea’s decision-makers disagree with Maresca, and essentially, they have told him that he must find an internal solution because their chequebook is closed for centre backs. They have already spent significant sums this summer – £48.5million on Jamie Gittens, £37m on Jorrel Hato, £60m on Joao Pedro, £30m on Liam Delap and so on – and reckon their squad is strong enough.

With that, one of the club’s own in Josh Acheampong was selected at the heart of Maresca’s defence instead. At 19 years and 104 days, he was the second-youngest player to start for Chelsea in their opening game of a Premier League season, after Glen Johnson in 2003-04.

When Marc Cucurella inverted into midfield to leave Chelsea with a back three, it was on Acheampong to pretend to be Colwill with Reece James on his right and Trevoh Chalobah on his left. Acheampong was ‘the guy in the middle’, as Maresca likes to describe it.

Acheampong held his own overall, though he was the one who gave away possession while trying to pass from the back as Palace won their free-kick from which Eze scored. While the visitors celebrated, Chelsea’s set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva immediately began badgering the fourth official, Michael Salisbury, alerting him to Guehi’s position next to Chelsea’s wall.

Maresca was asked again on signing a replacement for Colwill afterwards and spikily said: ‘You like to talk about central defenders? I already spoke. Thank you very much.’

With Maresca having seemingly lost his battle with those above him over a centre-back signing, he must find a solution and fast, given how crucial that position is to the way his team play.

Chelsea had chances to score, especially towards the end. Andrey Santos skied one in stoppage time which was such a waste of a chance that Palmer sank to his knees upon witnessing it.

But overall, this was not how Chelsea’s supporters imagined their afternoon going after arriving with such optimism, even singing ‘champions of the world’ within 10 seconds of kick-off as new artwork was unveiled above the Shed End to remind everyone of that fact.

Cucurella had a header cleared off the line at the very start, but it was not until the 90th minute when Dean Henderson would next be tested as Liam Delap blasted the ball directly at Crystal Palace’s goalkeeper. No club had seen more players grab goals on their Premier League debut than Chelsea. Their record stood at 27, but Delap could not add to that total here, nor Joao Pedro or Jamie Gittens or Estevao Willian, who was brought on as a second-half substitute.

Chelsea want to tell anyone and everyone that they are world champions but whether they can play like they are, so soon after that slog of a summer, remains to be seen.