A hat-trick from Man City forward Kerolin contributed to the defeat for Bompastor's side, leaving us 12 points behind them in the Women's Super League table.

While the Chelsea head coach wanted some more time to reflect before giving a more detailed assessment of the team’s position, she took responsibility for finding a way through a difficult period.

That will involve pulling together as a unit and working together before our next match away at Tottenham Hotspur.

‘It’s difficult to talk about the title race after this tough result,’ she said afterwards. ‘I think I said before the game – and I still have the same mindset – we just need to focus on ourselves, because the result is tough, but there are reasons to explain that.

‘The staff and the players have to stay together and make sure we understand where we are, what we need to focus on, how much we need to work out, to get back to a better position.

‘As a manager, I will always assume the results of this team, so, yeah, I need to focus also on what the solutions arre for me to bring to this team, for us to be in a lot better place.’

Bompastor explained that she had gone with a different setup after the loss to Arsenal at Stamford Bridge last weekend, but thought that any future improvements would come by stripping back any extra layers of detail.

And the head coach will have a period of time to work with the team at Cobham, with no midweek fixture scheduled this week.

‘I always self-reflect, no matter if we are winning or losing games,’ Bompastor continued. ‘I always look at my decisions, on my tactics, everything. I'm really hard on myself. We played the game against Arsenal with a back three.

'Today, we changed the system a little bit with a back four. We tried something different with different players on the pitch. And you know, as much as you want to explain everything in football, sometimes it doesn't work.

‘When it's like this, it's tough for sure, but you need to find the solutions, you need to stay strong, and make sure we work on the basics. We need get back to a level where we are producing more. There is a lot of quality in this group, so I think we need to perform better.’

With the hosts having put five goals past us at the Etihad, Bompastor also acknowledged the quality in our opponents’ performance.

She believed the difference between the two on the day was efficiency, and that is one of the areas she wants to work on going forward.

Sonia concluded: ‘As you could see, it was two top teams playing against each other, but one was really efficient in both boxes, defensively, offensively, and the other was not. When you play a top team – and I'm not putting everything on the players – but we made too many mistakes today.

‘We also need to solve that to make sure when we are trying to build up, we are more efficient. We made some big mistakes in that part of the game where we got punished. I think set pieces, we got punished too, so that's a lot when you want to win a game against a top team.’