Chelsea suffered a 3-1 defeat at Elland Road on Wednesday evening, when two first-half goals by the home side put us on the back foot. Pedro Neto’s strike after the break briefly gave us hope of a fightback, but Leeds found the net a third time to put the game beyond us.

As we hunted a way back into the match, Maresca turned to his bench to make a series of attacking substitutions. Among them was the introduction of Palmer, who made his delayed return from injury to feature for the first time since the away trip to Manchester United in September.

Having explained on many occasions why he believes the Blues are a better team with Palmer in the line-up, the Italian was pleased to have his No10 available for selection again, even if he is still short of the fitness required to complete 90 minutes.

‘Probably it’s the only good news of the night,’ said Maresca. ‘I’m happy for him, he’s back, now he needs to build a little bit the physical condition and he will be important for us, for sure.

‘He’s getting better, but he needs to play minutes. Last night he had more-or-less half-an-hour, hopefully we can give him more in the next game.’

Another of those substitutes was Neto, who came on at half-time and found the net just five minutes later.

It was the Portuguese winger’s fifth Premier League goal of the season – along with two assists – meaning he has already matched his best tally of goals in a single campaign in the competition, achieved during his time with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2020/21.

‘Pedro, compared to last season, he is doing many things better,’ added our head coach. ‘It’s also normal now this season that he is scoring goals and getting assists.’

Maresca will now be hoping those two forwards and their Blues team-mates can help us get back to winning ways when we travel to Bournemouth for our next Premier League fixture in two days’ time, after our seven-game unbeaten run in all competitions came to an end at Elland Road.

‘Now we need to reset, we need to prepare for Saturday’s game,’ he concluded. ‘Saturday will be very similar to last night’s game with the environment, the intensity, and we need to reset and prepare to win the game.’