CHELSEA boss Enzo Maresca claimed he didn't see much difference between the two Newcastle performances against his side in recent days - and said, other than the decisive 10-minute spell in the first half on Wednesday night, the Blues "controlled the game" at St James' Park.

Despite seeing his side get knocked out of the Carabao Cup on Tyneside, the Italian said he was pleased with Chelsea's display in the fourth round tie. And he felt the visitors did more than enough to win the game.

Chelsea had their chances but were undone by a quickfire first half double, when Alexander Isak's opener was followed by Axel Disasi's own-goal.

It was a much improved display from the Magpies, but Maresca claimed there was little difference between Newcastle's performance at Stamford Bridge on Sunday and their cup showing four days later.

"I didn't see a big difference," he said.

"The last game they were more or less in the same way as tonight, they tried to be aggressive and last Sunday and today we did quite well.

"The first goal is one we can avoid. We knew playing through the middle they can be quite aggressive so the solution should have been to go outside. I didn't see big difference between tonight and two days ago. For them, they needed to win this game to build a bit of momentum."

Maresca added: "If we analyse the performance. For 23 minutes, until their goal, we were in control and didn't concede anything. Then after the goal we lost control for 10 minutes. But the last 10 minutes of the first half we had chances but unfortunately didn't score.

"And in the second half we were in control of the game. The most important thing is the result but we lost the game because of 10 minutes. For the rest we were quite good."

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Cole Palmer tormented Newcastle on Sunday but was an unused substitute at St James' Park.

Maresca said: "Joao [Felix] and Christopher [Nkunku] did very good. Cole was here in case we needed him but because Joao and Felix were doing well there was no need to change."

Maresca was asked whether he felt Anthony Gordon should have been sent off for a second half tackle on Marc Cucurella, when the Newcastle forward was given a yellow card by referee Chris Kavanagh.

He replied: "I prefer not to talk about the referee."