Enzo Maresca labelled Saturday night’s defeat to Aston Villa the “toughest” of his Chelsea reign - but insisted his team are one win away from reviving their season.
The Blues’s dismal run of form continued at Villa Park, as Marco Asensio’s double saw the home side come from behind to claim a 2-1 win.
The result means the Chelsea have taken just nine points from their last ten league games, and lost three on the bounce across competitions following back-to-back defeats at Brighton this month.
Maresca, though, insisted he was pleased with his team’s response to those losses and left gutted by Villa’s winner, which came a minute from time courtesy of a Filip Jorgensen howler.
“This is probably the toughest defeat of the season because the reaction from Brighton was brilliant,” Maresca said. “The performance was very good but in this moment its not enough.
“The reason I said before its the toughest defeat of the season is that today our team was there. You could see us, off the ball aggressive, on the ball trying to create chances.
“It’s a moment where we are a bit unlucky. We need to turn that, we just need a win to try to go again.
“We have 12 games to go and my feeling is that by winning one we’ll go again.”
Maresca, did however, did offer a positive injury update on Trevoh Chalobah.
The defender was forced off inside the opening 10 minutes as he appeared to be struggling with his lower back after a coming together with Asensio.
"Trevor, we’ll see its early," Maresca said. "We’ll see tomorrow. He looks quite good now."
