Top of the group, another win, calm before the looming Emirates storm.
But nobody will have left Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night truly believing they had just witnessed the next champions of Europe.
Demba Ba's close-range nudge home was a fittingly scrappy way to decide a desperately scrappy game.
Yet most of what followed was frankly dreadful - miserable, lumpen rubbish, nowhere near good enough for Roman Abramovich; the laser-pen "attack" on Eden Hazard, Oscar and Jose Mourinho from the Romanian fans was as noteworthy as anything that took place on the pitch.
At least, after their week of woe at the back, there was a clean sheet, although not for the rested Petr Cech and, to be fair to Chelsea, it did not matter.
Only a defeat here could have meant an anxious wait for Monday's last 16 draw and Steaua were so pitiful that was never going to happen.
Yet this was an anaemic evening that never challenged Mourinho's pre-match declaration that his Blues are not genuine favourites for the biggest bauble of all.
Steaua have not won a Champions League game in more than seven years - with no end in sight to that wait - and were as poor a team as the statistics suggest, allowing Mourinho to make six changes from the defeat at Stoke, including a Champions League debut - at 41 - for Mark Schwarzer and the anticipated defensive returns for both Ashley Cole and David Luiz.
Not that any of them had much to do as Steaua's many inadequacies were displayed.
nside the first six minutes, Luiz side-footed a Willian corner off-target and Oscar smashed past the upright after being picked out by the former Donetsk wide-man.
Then two Frank Lampard deliveries had keeper Ciprian Tatarasanu and his so-called defence all over the place and it was no surprise when Chelsea took the lead just 10 minutes in.
Another Willian corner from the right found Oscar unmarked and while UEFA initially debited the goal against Daniel Georgievski, Ba, justifiably and correctly, claimed he had made the final touch.
One up, in control and... Chelsea promptly switched off.
They should have been punished when striker Gabriel Iancu walked through a gap as wide as the King's Road, John Terry trailing in his wake, but slid wide of both Schwarzer and the target.
Chelsea's sloppiness was infectious, Cole and John Obi Mikel among those suffering from the bug, and while Mourinho chose not to leave his dug-out seat, he could not have been impressed.
Thankfully for Chelsea, Steaua did not arrive out of contention in Group E for no reason. They are not good enough.
Branislav Ivanovic thought he had knocked any remaining fight out of them with a point-blank header after Willian and Eden Hazard has worked a short corner routine on the left, only for Tatarusanu to make an instinctive stop.
Chelsea's passing, though, was far from precise, their only other threats before the break being long-rangers from Lampard and Cole, the biggest cheer when Ba was finally given the opener on the giant scoreboards.
Source: Daily Mirror
