A goal late in extra time from Virgil van Dijk condemned the Blues to a narrow defeat – and that came after several good opportunities were spurned by Mauricio Pochettino's side during the 90 minutes at Wembley.

Liverpool also had their chances throughout the contest, with Petrovic producing several impressive stops in what was his first final for Chelsea. Unfortunately, they proved in vain for the Blues.

‘The feeling is very painful,' explained Petrovic. 'It was a first final for a lot of us, also here at Wembley. The atmosphere was amazing and we really felt the Chelsea supporters with us.

'We must use this feeling because this is a new generation and we want to keep the success of this club.’

Pochettino and his players have very little time to digest the defeat at Wembley. The players are back in at Cobham today to undertake their recovery work and begin preparing for the visit of Leeds United in the FA Cup on Wednesday.

‘We are not happy and it hurts,' said Petrovic. 'We left everything on the pitch. The team put in a lot of effort and we had a lot of opportunities, we hit the post, and we had chances to maybe kill the game but we couldn’t do it.

‘Then we concede the very goal late and that one detail changes everything as we don’t have time to stop them lifting the trophy. Now we have to get our heads up and think about Wednesday against Leeds as that is an important game for us in the FA Cup.’