The Spaniard was unfortunate when John McGinn’s shot was deflected off his leg to give Aston Villa an early lead on Saturday evening, which became 2-0 by half-time, but Marc Cucurella was prominently involved as Chelsea fought back in the second half to secure a draw.

We were also unlucky not to take a 3-2 win, when Axel Disasi had a late winner ruled out, but it was still an impressive second-half performance to take a point after being two behind at half-time.

For Cucurella, that means the second 45 minutes at Villa Park should be the new benchmark for the Blues moving forward, marking a stark contrast to the heavy defeat to Arsenal in our previous match.

‘For sure we need to play like the second half at Villa. I think we deserved to win,’ said Cucurella.

‘We don’t have excuses. We played very bad against Arsenal. We need to improve a lot because we play at Chelsea, we need to win every game to stay at this level.

‘The attitude was not correct and in the first half on Saturday we didn’t understand the game good and we suffered a little bit. But we showed that we have the quality and we have the spirit to play, to fight together. We need to stay in this way because we are a young team.

‘We showed on Saturday we have the quality. We played against fourth in the league and we dominated all the game. The attitude of the team in the second half was very good because we came from a difficult game and we started bad again, but the team showed its personality and confidence.

‘We played together, we fought together and it’s the way we need to play in every game, in every minute, because the quality is there but we need to be consistent. If we don’t play and fight together it is difficult because it’s one of the best leagues in the world.’

As we enter the last month of the season, Cucurella knows the importance of finding that consistency of performance sooner rather than later.

The first of our final five fixtures comes in a London derby on Thursday, when we host Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge. As our game in hand, a victory would close the gap to seventh-placed Newcastle United and what is likely to be the last European qualification spot to just three points.

‘We need to play like this, like a team, have the same energy and fight together,’ he continued. ‘The quality is there but we need to play like the second half for all the game, every minute, because if we play like this we can win.

‘We have to understand that we need to play always at this level, to keep this level in every minute of every game, because if we stay in this way we can do a lot of good things.

‘We need to watch the game again, find the good things and stay in this way. We have five games until the end of the season. I think we can do a lot of good things, finish in a good way and keep going.

‘On Thursday we have an important game as well. We play at home and we need to show our qualities. We need to keep these good things we did in the second half – this good attitude and performance – and we need to stay in this way and finish the season good.’