Things were looking promising at half-time, after Cole Palmer had netted a brilliant opening goal to give us the lead in a first-half we had controlled reasonably comfortably.

However, the visitors came into the match more following the break and, despite some decent chances for the Blues to extend our lead, two late goals by Fulham inflicted our first defeat in any competition since October.

Reflecting on the result and performance, our head coach admitted to feeling a sense of frustration at coming away with nothing from a game of two halves, which we had led with 10 minutes to go.

'Yes, there is some frustration, especially for the way we conceded the goal at the end,' said Maresca. 'It’s a bad feeling, also because I’ve said many times, when you can’t win it’s important you don’t lose.

'I think the first 15 or 20 minutes of the second half was the part I didn’t like, because we conceded too many transitions and we knew they are a team building from transitions, with [Alex] Iwobi, Adama [Traore], [Antonee] Robinson and [Raul] Jimenez.

'In the first half I felt we controlled that very good, we scored and created chances, then in the second half I think we gave them too much energy in the first 15 or 20 minutes. Even when they’d equalised we had some good chances, with Marc [Cucurella] and Jadon [Sancho], but it was a shame.'

However, even in defeat there are important lessons to learn in order to continue improving the team, and for Maresca the lesson to take from this Premier League meeting with Fulham was clear.

'For sure we can manage the game better because, as I said, we knew that they are very good in transition,' he continued. 'It is difficult to find a team like them with so many players that can run a lot. I think in the first half we controlled that well. In the first 15 or 20 minutes of the second half, we didn’t control that.

'It’s a game that for me, before you attack you need to give passes, passes, passes, because that makes us close together, and in the moment that we lose the ball we can be aggressive. But if we want to attack with one or two passes, then we are stretched, we are open, and they can hurt us. But it’s a lesson that we can learn.

'Fulham are a team that if you want to attack quick, then they will attack quick, and it becomes a basketball game. That’s not for us, we need to control it better.

'If there was something I didn’t like, for sure it was the result, but the other thing is that at some moments we could manage the game much better. For sure one of the things we could have done better was the game management, but also I think we did many good things.'