Although Chelsea had 19 attempts at St James’ Park, 11 of those were from outside the box and eight were blocked by a man in black and white. Of our four on-target efforts, just two were struck from inside the box, highlighting the difficulties we faced breaking down the Magpies.

They added insult to injury by netting a last-minute winner, leaving us empty-handed. Mount, who played the first two-thirds of the contest, cut a disappointed figure as he reacted to the result.

‘It’s a tough one to take,’ the midfielder said. ‘Even a draw we would have been disappointed with. We had a lot of possession, we created a lot of chances, but when we score no goals we can’t say anything.

‘They did unbelievable to defend the whole game, making blocks, winning tackles, and in football anything can happen. They then go to the other end of the pitch late on and score.’

It is our fourth league loss without scoring since late November, and Mount considered if we had similar issues to those endured in the home defeats to West Ham, Bournemouth and Southampton.

‘We spoke after the game and we thought we gave everything we could. I thought we created loads of chances. In some other games we didn’t create as many. We had some shots on target, but when the team are defending that well and that deep it’s hard to break them down.

‘We had a lot of possession. They had a lot of bodies behind the ball. We put crosses in, they defended it, so we need to look at what ways we can maybe add to our game to score these goals.

‘It was hard for us to get the ball in the areas we want and create chances. Credit to them that they defended so well, I thought we gave it our all and worked hard throughout the game, but in football anything can happen.’