Despite playing away, the Blues had two-thirds of possession against the Magpies and created several good openings across the 90 minutes.

But the hosts scored two goals in three minutes midway through the first half, with a Renato Veiga slip and potential foul contributing to Alexander Isak’s opener and then Axel Disasi turning a header into his own net soon after.

Maresca made 11 changes to his starting line-up, as has been customary in cup competitions this season, and was asked ‘why it didn’t work tonight’ in his post-match press conference.

‘I think it [making 11 changes] worked if we analyse the performance. If we analyse the result, then it didn’t work,’ he replied.

‘But I think for 23 minutes, until their goal, we were in control of the game and didn’t concede anything. Then after the goal, we lost control for ten minutes, when we conceded the second goal, and then for the last ten minutes of the first half, we created two or three clear-cut chances when we unfortunately didn’t score and in the second half we were in control of the game.

‘So I know the most important thing is the result but with the performance, we lost the game because of ten minutes and for the rest we were quite good.’

Newcastle’s high-intensity press caused Chelsea problems during the first half and contributed to the Magpies’ opening goal.

Maresca was asked how different it had been to play against the Geordies tonight, compared to Sunday’s 2-1 victory at Stamford Bridge.

He said: ‘I didn’t see a big difference [in how Newcastle played tonight]. I think in the last game they were more or less in the same way as tonight, trying to be aggressive. Today I think we did quite well.

‘The first goal is one we can avoid because we know playing through the middle, we know they are quite aggressive so the solution was to go outside but it can happen.

‘I didn’t see a big difference between tonight and Sunday. For sure, they needed to win this game to build momentum because of their last results.’

He continued: ‘We need to get better at many things but we didn’t concede any chances from their pressing three days ago because we contacted not with the first line – on Sunday it was Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo and tonight it was Renato Veiga, Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella – we always tried to contact with the second line because we know they are very aggressive.

‘Two days ago, we did very well and I think we did very well tonight apart from the goal we conceded. But for sure we have many things we can do better.’

Maresca only made one substitution tonight, bringing on Noni Madueke for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, and decided against bringing on the likes of Cole Palmer, Carney Chukwuemeka or Marc Guiu.

The Italian was asked specifically about Palmer and if there was a reason the England international was left on the bench.

He replied: ‘No, it was simply because Joao and Christo were doing very well and it was just in case we needed Cole but because Joao and Christo were doing well, there was no need to change.’