Chelsea booked our place in the Carabao Cup semi-finals, where we will face Middlesbrough in January, after coming from behind with a late Mykhailo Mudryk equaliser to beat Newcastle United via a penalty shoot-out on Tuesday evening.

It felt like an important moment in this Blues side’s development, both in terms of the strong overall performance and the character shown to keep fighting until the end to secure the result.

That is certainly a hope shared by Mauricio Pochettino, who believes there is plenty his team can take from that victory with the right attitude.

‘For me it should be a very important thing for us,’ said Pochettino. ‘We need to show that we are clever and capitalise on the experience and then to use it in the future.

‘Of course every game is different and it was a different competition, but I think it’s part of the process to grow and to improve as a team and a group. It was really important.

‘Step by step we are building something good. We are still far away from what we want but I think we are in a good way. We are doing things that will be positive for the future.’

There will be plenty of opportunities to put the lessons learned into practice over the festive period, as our attention returns to the Premier League. Our Christmas Eve fixture away at Wolverhampton Wanderers is quickly followed by a home game with Crystal Palace before ending 2023 with a trip to Luton Town, all in the space of seven days.

While Pochettino is careful to keep our focus on the next match, that opportunity to make an impression on the league table and build momentum with a trio of good results in such quick succession is not lost on our head coach.

‘At the moment we are only thinking about the game on Christmas Eve,’ he continued. ‘It is going to be tough, it is going to be difficult. We have seen from many games that for the opponent it is very tough to play there at Molineux and of course it’s going to be a challenge.

‘Our objective is to win the first game against Wolves, and then think about three days after against Palace and, of course, three days after that in Luton.

‘It will be massive for us if we are able to win the three games, because nine points would provide us with the opportunity to be in a better position in the table.’

For the middle of those three games, against Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge, there could be a further boost from the cup win over Newcastle, as the atmosphere inside the stadium on that evening was one of the best all season.

Pochettino knows how important that can be, but also feels his players have to take responsibility to give the fans plenty to get excited about, so that the team and supporters can continue feeding off each other to create that atmosphere at the Bridge together.

‘We also learned against Newcastle that our fans are amazing, but we already knew that. But also probably they behaved well because the team was good. That is our responsibility, to perform well to create this type of moment and pass the feeling on to the fans, because I think the fans react really well when they can see on the pitch that the team is doing well and showing great energy.

‘It was fantastic. It was a little bit of a shame that we didn’t score before, but that was a massive result for us. We always believe. We are young and we try always to keep pushing and never give up. That is for me the best lesson that we can take from the Newcastle game.’

Hopefully it is a lesson learned which will be in evidence again at Molineux on Sunday, as well as back in west London when Crystal Palace come to SW6.