Monday night's 3-1 win over Wolves was our only Premier League victory since beating Brentford 2-1 on December 15, although there were also successes over Shamrock Rovers and Morecambe in that time.

Maresca often talked about the potential of his young team going through difficult spells, even when the Blues were second in the table, so the recent dip in form has not come as a major surprise to the Italian.

With the Blues having the youngest squad - and average age of the starting XI - in the Premier League, inconsistency is to be expected and Maresca explained how his players have learned a lot from the last six weeks.

He said: 'In my opinion, we are a better team that one month ago or two months ago because in this kind of moment, these kind of games, for sure they are going to make us better because we need to live this experience.

'I said two weeks ago, from now on, we can be third, we can be fourth, fifth or sixth...the games until the end [of the season] now can change [our position] a little bit.

'The good thing is that we are focused and we are trying to improve game after game.'

The Blues started really brightly at the Etihad, as Noni Madueke gave us the lead in the third minute following some good pressure by Nicolas Jackson.

We created a number of dangerous chances in the opening 45 minutes, with Jadon Sancho, Cole Palmer and Madueke all going close.

But it was to be the hosts who grabbed the game's second goal through Josko Gvardiol, just before the interval.

Chelsea could have gone in front once more in the second half, as Marc Cucurella and Nicolas Jackson had good chances, but Erling Haaland put City in front on 68 minutes and Phil Foden guaranteed the three points late on.

Maresca felt our failure to get the second goal ultimately proved costly.

He said: 'We started the game in exactly the way we prepared. We scored the first one, we could have scored the second one in three different chances.

'I think, and I am completely sure, because of the mood and because of the moment, scoring the second one, the game would completely change. Unfortunately we didn't score the second one.

'The high pressing; you have to be brave in these kinds of games, knowing that if you have to press higher then you leave their best player - which is Haaland - one-v-one against your defender. But I think we dealt, for most parts of the game, quite well.

'Even the second goal we conceded, we were one-v-one with Trev [Chalobah] but there was all the time to control and manage the moment better.'