The past 11 days have seen us lose four games on the bounce, with a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle United sandwiched in-between heavy losses to Paris Saint-Germain and Everton.

Yesterday's 3-0 defeat to the Toffees comes just before a two-week international break, where we will then return to action with an FA Cup quarter-final at home to League One Port Vale on Saturday 4 April.

And Hato said: ‘We had a few difficult games in a row so maybe it's a good time now [to have the international break]. Everyone has the time for themself to think about how we are going to do it after the break. But I still have a lot of belief in this squad and I think we will reach what we want to reach [this season].’

On the reasons behind our 3-0 loss to Everton, he added: ‘It's hard to say what it is, but with how painful it is, we have to take this one and look forward. We now have an international break, so everyone has time to think about the next games.

‘We are still in the FA Cup, we can still reach what we want in terms of the top four [in the Premier League], so we have to look forward.’

Saturday's match saw the Toffees come flying out the traps and they made life hard for us inside the opening 20 minutes.

We grew into the match and were on top when slightly against the run of play, a neat pass from James Garner and a smart finish from Beto put the hosts in front.

The Blues would have responded immediately through Enzo Fernandez had it not been for a world-class stop by Jordan Pickford and the England No.1 kept his side in front early in the second period by denying the Argentinian once again.

It was to prove pivotal as Beto grabbed a second soon after following a counter-attack and the win was rounded off by an emphatic finish from Iliman Ndiaye inside the final quarter of an hour.

When asked if the Blues lacked confidence when going 1-0 down, Hato replied: ‘No, I don't think it's a confidence issue because we went 1-0 down but we still created chances, we still had control of the game. So I don't think that was the issue, but after they made it 2-0 and then 3-0, it's tough to come back.’

And when asked about Everton's pressing and if it wouldn't let Chelsea settle into the contest, he added: ‘Maybe in the beginning, the first 15 minutes, they were pressing well. But after that we had control of the game, we created chances and they were spending most of the time in the game very deep in their own half. But it was hard, it was difficult to score, and it was just not enough.’

The phrase 'not enough' was used several times by Hato when describing the Blues' performance on the day, admitting: 'It was not enough from us. I think we tried, but today was not enough.’