The death knell sounded shortly before 9pm. Gary Cahill had just made it 3-1 when the news filtered through that Juventus had taken the lead against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Donbass Arena. It was the news Chelsea had been dreading and though Rafael Benítez can reflect on his first victory, the goal-fest felt almost incongruous considering the significance of what it ultimately meant.

The celebrations had to be subdued when the club currently in ownership of the most prized trophy in European football had been plonked into the Europa League, with its ongoing identity crisis and Thursday-night-Sunday-afternoon rota. Fernando Torres at least reminded himself of what it is like to find the goal, scoring in each half and visibly growing in confidence. Yet the joys of old were drastically diminished. It was a clutching-at-straws kind of night, even if bagging half a dozen goals did spare Benítez the prospect of another mauling from the crowd.

David Luiz's penalty started the rout during an eccentric seven-minute spell featuring three spot-kicks, two misses and one whistle-happy referee. After that, the scoring continued at a rate of a goal every five-and-a-half minutes until Oscar, a second-half substitute, completed the rout in the 71st minute. What a pity for Chelsea that they could not have been this prolific when they played Shakhtar. In the end, they have gone out on the basis of their head-to-head record against the Ukraine team. Both sides won on their own ground but Shakhtar scored twice at Stamford Bridge whereas Chelsea managed only one in Donetsk.

Everyone knew the ramifications of that Juventus goal, with the Italians also qualifying from Group E, and that made it a strange second-half, with plenty of enjoyable football mixing with a sense of wider failure. Chelsea seemed capable of scoring every time they broke forward but the celebrations became more subdued with each goal and the backdrop was another reminder for Benítez about his unpopularity in these parts.

The Spaniard was booed as soon as he walked out of the tunnel before kick-off. Within four minutes the crowd were singing in support of Roberto Di Matteo. Banners were thrust to the skies proclaiming their backing for the sacked Italian. A José Mourinho fan with a spare bedsheet and tin of blue paint had created the message "Bring back the Special One", flapping in the wind from the Shed End.

Yet Nordsjaelland were obliging opponents for a manager looking for his first win. The team currently nine points adrift from the top of Denmark's Superliga arrived with the worst defensive record in the competition and no win in Europe since beating Queen of the South in a qualifying round of the 2008 Uefa Cup. Chelsea had thumped them 4-0 in October. Nordsjaelland were, in short, about as easy as it gets at this level. "Just to put it in perspective," their manager, Kasper Hjulmand, said afterwards, "we were formed 10 years ago and we have spent £1m on this squad."

Torres certainly relished the kind of space that better opponents would not afford him. "We helped to get him back on track," as Hjulmand put it. At one point Torres was emboldened enough to try to cross the ball with a kick from behind his standing leg. The old Torres might have taken Nordsjaelland to the cleaners but, at the risk of ushering in another false dawn, these goals might still have therapeutic effects.

The first was setup by Victor Moses, driving forward on the right and then spotting Torres's run inside the defender. The striker's first effort came back off the goalkeeper, Jesper Hansen, but the ricochet was kind and his follow-up attempt exhibited none of the awkwardness that has made it feel recently as though he were playing in a straightjacket. Torres took his chance with something bordering on coolness and, after that, played with much greater penetration and effect. His second, created by Eden Hazard's fine run and cross, was a splendid piece of six-yard area poaching.

By the end Chelsea had accumulated 32 efforts at goal, including 18 on target. Cahill scored with a header from Juan Mata's free-kick and the Spaniard also set up Oscar to stroke in the sixth as well as scoring the one that came before it, following up his own rebound after Hansen's initial save.

Benítez, full of praise for his team, could also reflect on Hazard's miss during that freakish spell when the Dutch referee, Bas Nijhuis, awarded three penalties for handballs by, in order, Cahill, Mikkel Beckmann and Patrick Mtiliga. Of those, only Beckmann's seemed legitimate. Cahill had been outside the area and Mtiliga was simply in the way of Mata's shot. Petr Cech, diving to his right, saved the first of them, denying Nicolai Stokholm and sparing Benítez the possibility of another mutinous reaction. Hazard's was struck with a strange lack of confidence, not seen in his general play.

Chelsea did wobble, briefly, at the start of the second-half when Kasper Lorentzen's pass behind the home defence was weighted beautifully and Joshua John had the pace to elude Branislav Ivanovic and prod the ball past Cech. The decisive blow, however, arrived in Donetsk and Chelsea are the first team to win the competition then go out at the first stage the following year. The delirium in Munich on 19 May feels a long time ago.