There was little to separate the sides at Stamford Bridge on Sunday evening in terms of possession and chances, with both creating openings in each half.

It was Arsenal who took the lead on the hour when Gabrielle Martinelli was left unmarked inside the left of the penalty area and he fired the ball past Robert Sanchez at his near post.

But the visitors' advantage only lasted ten minutes as Pedro Neto cut inside onto his left foot and fired a powerful low drive from 20 yards into the bottom corner.

Maresca said: ‘I think the performance was good. We played the way we wanted to play both on the ball and off the ball. The game for some moments was open and anything could have happened for either side but 100 per cent we deserved the point. This is important.’

Manchester City on the opening day and Liverpool in mid-October are the only teams to have defeated Chelsea in the league this season, with the Blues impressing in both games. We have also defeated Newcastle United and earned draws against Arsenal, Manchester United and Forest in the last five weeks.

Maresca, who only took over as Chelsea head coach in July, was asked about the fact Chelsea have yet to beat one of the top sides they have faced so far this season.

He replied: ‘Do you think we deserved to lose against Liverpool? No. But this is football and it can happen. Very soon we are going to win this kind of game but for sure in this moment, the performance is very important because if you draw tonight and you don’t deserve the draw, then you might be happy with the result but not the performance.

‘For me, Bournemouth away we didn’t deserve to win and we won. And at home to Palace and Forest, we deserved to win and we didn’t win so it is game-by-game and soon we are going to win this kind of game. But our performance has been very good.’

When asked if the issue was his team finding a little bit more conviction, Maresca replied: ‘No I don’t think so because the team until the end were trying to win the game and it was just about scoring one more goal than the other team.

‘I would be more worried if the performance wasn’t good enough but I think we competed very well against Man City, Liverpool, Manchester United and tonight so this is very important.’

This evening's 1-1 draw and point saw the Blues go up to third in the Premier League table, level on 19 points with Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Brighton & Hove Albion, with Manchester City (23 points) and Liverpool (28 points) the only teams above the Blues.

Maresca said: ‘It [being in third place] is nice, especially for the fans after the last period where it has not been great or not in the way the club have done so in the past.

‘We are happy. Now we have the international period where we can recover some energy and then we go again. For sure, it is something nice.’

One of the journalists put to Maresca that it is positive to see Chelsea so high in the table considering he has only been working with his players for four months and our head coach replied: ‘I am very happy.

'I have said many times that we are behind clubs like City and Arsenal because they have worked every day for the last five years or nine years with the same manager so we are behind them but that doesn’t mean we are not going to compete because Chelsea is one of the biggest clubs in Europe and the world.

'So yes we need to compete and we need to try to win games. And tonight, we competed and we tried to win the game. Then very soon, we will win these kind of games.’