Frank Lampard admits the biggest test for his Chelsea players will be show a reaction after their 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on Saturday.
The Blues put in a decent performance at the Etihad Stadium, going ahead through N’Golo Kante’s third Premier League goal of the season.
However, Lampard’s side were punished for their mistakes with Kevin De Bruyne’s deflected shot finding the back of the net and Riyad Mahrez netting the winner.
Despite the defeat, the Blues are still safely inside the top four, seven points clear of Wolves, having gone on a six-game winning streak before the weekend's loss to City.
But with a busy period coming up now, the Blues have a massive Champions League clash at Valencia on Wednesday before taking on London rivals West Ham next weekend.
And Lampard has urged his team to show the resilience needed to come through those examinations.
“It is hard to explain my expectation at the start of the season because until you work daily with the players and until you bring players who were playing in the Championship last year and players you have never been here then you don’t know how it is going to drop or end up,” Lampard said.
“So I have been really happy with a lot of our stuff this season, maybe it means we are slightly ahead of the curve.
“In football the curve will go down very quickly if you don’t keep on yourself and take a lot of the lessons from today and moving forward.
“Our test now is whether we bounce back from when we are used to winning. That is another test for us all.
“For some of them it is their first experience going up in this stadium against a high level team like they are.
“You always learn, young or old, from those types of games. I think that there was a lot that we did really well individually and collectively, and there were some things that we were slightly off with in which we can improve on.
“So it’s my job I guess to analyse that with the players and we need to go through those experiences if we want to be where we want to be.”
