It was very much a game of two halves for the Blues on Tuesday night. The opening 45 minutes was one of the best halves we have produced this season as the visitors were lucky to go into the break just one Cole Palmer goal behind.

But it was a different story in the second period as Justin Kluivert's early penalty saw the momentum shift and our performance level drop, and the visitors went ahead with just over 20 minutes remaining through Antoine Semenyo.

In the end, Reece James' injury-time free-kick salvaged us a point but Maresca acknowledged he and his staff would need to assess why the Blues' performance deteriorated in the second half.

When asked if he was concerned by the drop in performance in the second half, Maresca replied: ‘I am always concerned and I am always worried, even when we win. For sure, every game is different. Tonight after the goal and after we conceded the penalty, we changed and we dropped a little bit and those are the moments where you have to show even more your personality and your character because you have conceded.

‘The game was 100 per cent under control and we need to understand why we dropped after the penalty but I am worried always, but I am more worried when you don’t create and we don’t play well. When you create, probably, hopefully, we can be more lucky in the future.’

As Maresca highlighted, the Blues were totally dominant in the first half and created a whole host of chances. We could have had three or four at least had it not been for some good saves by goalkeeper Mark Travers.

Clear-cut chances were less frequent in the second period but we still created openings to score prior to James' dramatic equaliser.

Maresca said: ‘First of all, we analyse the game and when you create chances, sometimes you are more lucky. Sometimes you create one chance and you score one goal, and sometimes you need to create ten chances to score one goal, so it is a little bit about the moment in the season.

'At this moment, we struggle to score goals but we have not struggled to create chances in every game. Hopefully we can be more lucky in the future and we score goals.'

In his post-match press conference, a journalist put it to Maresca that there appeared to have been a pattern of performances dropping in the second half and was asked for his thoughts on if there was a reason for it.

He replied: ‘Yeah, for sure it is one of the things we need to improve. Palace game, in the second half, we didn’t concede too much. Ipswich, in the second half, after the second goal, we didn’t create many chances, but the one which is very clear is tonight.

‘The way we were playing, there was only one team on the pitch in the first half and that was Chelsea. After the penalty was scored, it is not normal for the way we dropped so we need to understand the reason why and try to improve.

‘I have no doubt for the players, they need to go through this kind of moment and live this moment and in the future, we are going to be better and better.’