This was Chelsea’s fifth and final match of the USA tour. After a 2-2 draw with Wrexham in Santa Clara, the Blues suffered a 4-1 loss to Celtic, who were a week out from the start of their season getting underway, in Notre Dame.

Chelsea impressed on their way to a 3-0 win over Club America in Atlanta before mistakes proved costly against Manchester City at the iconic Ohio Stadium.

There was little to separate the Blues and Real Madrid on Tuesday night but Dani Ceballos and Brahim Diaz’s goals in the first half would ultimately decide the contest, despite Noni Madueke pulling a goal back just before half-time.

Maresca said: ‘One of my first meetings with the squad was about the number of goals we conceded last year with the defensive live being very high. It is something that we are trying to work on.

‘Today offensively, once again, I think we were there because the patterns are there and we created chances. The problem has been defensively and when I say defensively, I don’t just mean the defensive line. All of the players.

‘Overall, [the tour] is finished and now we head back to London where we will play against Inter Milan and then our first official game.’

On the high defensive line, he continued: ‘It is a habit. We are not working on playing with the defensive line higher. It is a habit from last year or from years ago. I don’t know. But we are trying to drop the defensive line by four or five metres so we have the advantage and don’t concede the balls in behind.

‘Last season we conceded many goals with this problem and hopefully we can solve this problem very soon.’

Chelsea have created a number of good chances in recent matches and although they haven't scored enough goals to beat Manchester City and Real Madrid, he is pleased with the attacking progress that has been made.

Maresca said: ‘The important thing for Christo, we are contacting him between the lines because he is very good there.

‘I think today we contacted with Christo and Enzo many, many times and this is the most important thing to arrive there because with timing, we are going to take chances and score more goals.’

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