What a strange little club Chelsea are. They spend years trying to become this powerhouse, this global entity, the newest and biggest of the European elite, and when they finally get there, or near, at least, they cannot escape the petty feuds and fissures of their past.

What could possibly be wrong at Chelsea in this moment? The first-team coach and owner are friends. The players are well rewarded and have reached the final of the Champions League. There is money to spend in the summer and, while coming second behind Manchester United in the Barclays Premier League was a blow, all the signs are that next season’s competition could be closer, if this group stays together. That is some if, however.

So who will be at Chelsea next season? Didier Drogba? Not necessarily. Frank Lampard? Wait and see. Petr Cech? Depends who you believe. Ricardo Carvalho? No comment. Avram Grant? No one is saying. The club are truly bizarre.

When Sir Alex Ferguson opens the doors of the United training ground to the cameras today, he will not be fielding questions about whether he will be sacked in the summer, or how many of his players are queueing up to leave. Yet Grant, having reached the same stage of the same competition, is the subject of external doubt, his squad may be on the verge of dissolution and it is disingenuous for the club to continue blaming a mischievous media.

True, Grant is less than one year into a four-year contract, but, in football, the security offered by such an agreement is more financial than actual. Bruce Buck, the Chelsea chairman, and Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, have been asked about Grant’s future in recent weeks and neither man provided a guarantee.

That is odd, too. When Grant did not possess the CV to assume his position at one of the elite clubs in European football, he was installed as José Mourinho’s replacement at lightning speed. Now, having run United to the finish line, and with a good chance of winning the biggest prize in the European club game, no one will confirm that Grant is the man for the job next season, a job he now merits, for another year at least. Curious bunch, are they not?

Asked if he found it strange that he was asked about his long-term prospects as the club faced the biggest match in their history, Grant agreed. Asked if he thought that the club could do more to make his position clear, he was diplomatic. “I don’t know what I can say, I don’t know what the club can say, but I have a contract for four years and it is a contract between friends,” he said. “If the club is not happy with me, no problem, but at the moment, nothing has happened. I don’t think they need to come to me every two weeks and tell me I can continue.

“If I had one year left, then, yes, I understand the questions, but in my position, I don’t think it is reasonable. This speculation has never bothered me because, in football, we know what happens. We are creating a tradition here by reaching this final and you will see that we will develop and this will not be the last time we do this.”

Grant was flanked by Simon Greenberg, the Chelsea director of communications who, in Star Trek terms, had set his phaser to “irritatingly overbearing”. He answered questions intended for Grant when it was plain that the man was relaxed and capable of dealing with his inquisitors. More able than his media adviser, it might be said, who at one stage mocked the latest speculation by saying that the same questions had been asked of Mourinho this time last year, clumsily forgetting that precisely 12 months ago, Mourinho had only eight competitive matches left as Chelsea manager, so rumours of his rift with Roman Abramovich, the owner, were hardly outlandish.

Greenberg said that Grant had a four-year contract not contingent on winning trophies, but when the silence of Buck and Kenyon was raised, he sulkily warned of terminating the press conference. Interestingly, Grant did not take this hint and remained comfortable in his supposed hot seat.

Defeating Liverpool in the Champions League semi-finals has changed him; altered the perception of him, too. He needed that, after disappointing in the Carling Cup final defeat by Tottenham Hotspur and appearing frantic yet powerless when Wigan Athletic equalised in the 94th minute of a league match at Stamford Bridge last month. The win over Liverpool was the result that put Grant’s marker down at Chelsea, took him a step beyond Mourinho, indicated that he may one day be regarded as more than a rich man’s friend.

Then there was the second goal against Newcastle United recently, probably the most nimble exchange of short passes seen from Chelsea players in recent years; that got Grant a public thumbs-up, too, suggesting that, left to his devices for another year, he could come closer to delivering Abramovich’s dream of the beautiful game.

“This season, there have been things we changed and things we kept,” Grant said. “I arrived in the middle of the season, so you do not come in like an elephant in a china shop and break everything. It is good to expect to be the best, though. The minute a club, a manager or a player thinks he is 100 per cent satisfied, that is a step down. If I win ten championships in ten years, I will still feel I have something to prove.”

And that is how it should be for Grant, but not his employers, surely. Just a supportive sentence would have sufficed, but a solitary figure can give the command to utter it and maybe he has not spoken yet. They are a strange lot at Chelsea. The littlest big club in the world, some might say, being run on the whim of one man.