It was a frustrating afternoon of Premier League football for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Having initially started brightly by taking the lead through Alejandro Garnacho's first goal for the Blues, and dominating the opening exchanges, things changed when Sunderland equalised midway through the first half.

From there we were left to try and force our way through a Black Cats defence which pulled every player back into the box, content to hold what they had, until added time when they snatched a winning goal from a hopeful long-ball forward.

Our head coach was honest in his assessment, insisting the Blues need to do better than today's performance, especially when it came to our defending for Sunderland's late winner.

'I think in general we were not good enough,' said Maresca. 'When you are not good enough in the Premier League we know that the consequences can be bad. I have said many times, when you are not able to win it is important you do not lose.

'The second goal was just one long-ball in behind, we had two-v-one with the two central defenders and we didn’t defend properly. The first goal came from a throw-in, but it is difficult because they bring six or seven players inside the six-yard box. But overall I think we were not good enough.

'It can be an easy situation because we have two-v-one, the striker is facing his own goal so it is an easy position to defend, but probably we tried to manage it a little bit because it was the 93rd minute. But in that case for sure we have to do better.'

It was a similar story at the other end of the pitch, where we struggled to break down our opponents to carve out chances, with Maresca pointing to the creativity and quality of final pass as an area which let us down on Saturday.

'I think we were not good enough, we lacked creativity, we didn’t create a lot, apart from the goal probably, and we struggled,' he continued.

'We need our players to perform 100 per cent. Even at 1-0 we lost some duels, we lost some second balls, and against this team we need to do better.

'When we arrive in certain areas of the pitch we cross because we expect to have four or five players in the box but today when we crossed we had players in the box but probably the quality of the cross was not the best.

'We have scored many goals from crosses, the last one I think was against Benfica at home, when Garnacho forced the own goal. Probably today was more about the quality of the cross than the players who were in the box.'