Frank Lampard urged his Chelsea players to not be too deflated in the immediate aftermath of their 4-0 thrashing at Manchester United on Sunday.
Chelsea's new head coach handed starts to Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount in a youthful line-up at Old Trafford and the homegrown pair started brightly, the former rattling a post when the score was still goalless.
The visitors arguably shaded the first half but trailed to a Marcus Rashford penalty before United ran riot after Anthony Martial had doubled their advantage shortly after the hour mark.
Rashford scored once more before debutant Daniel James netted to give the hosts victory by a margin that flattered them in both sides' curtain-raiser.
And Lampard was quick to make that clear to his players in the visitors' Old Trafford dressing room, seemingly aware that his team were unfortunate to leave Manchester on the back of a humiliating defeat.
Asked if Chelsea ’s players needed to keep some perspective about the scoreline, Lampard told Sky Sports: "Yeah for sure. That’s the first thing I said [to them].
"We have to be grown up about it because it doesn’t feel nice. We’re Chelsea we don’t want to come here and lose 4-0, we don’t want to come anywhere and lose 4-0.
"But we know – and anyone playing the game knows – we put in a performance that for big parts wasn’t a 4-0, but we have to accept that and realise it’s probably three points and we have too many things coming.
"We have a game on Wednesday, the Super Cup, we have our first home game next weekend and we need to take all the good bits [from the United loss] but, more so, we need to analyse the bad bits and correct them."
Lampard's squad will have a chance to bounce back from their defeat when they face English top-flight rivals Liverpool in their UEFA Super Cup showdown on Wednesday night.
