Enzo Maresca urged Chelsea to win competitions with fine margins after he had beaten Brighton from the FA Cup on Saturday.
The blues continued in the fifth minute thanks to Bart Verbruggen's own goal, but Brighton turned the game upside down when Georginio Rutter and Kaoru Mitoma completed the comeback.
Chelsea has not succeeded in winning five of their last seven games in all competitions when scoring the first (D2 L3), while they have won only three of their last 10 outings (D3 L4).
They also did not go further than the fourth round of the FA Cup in two of the last three seasons, as often as combined in the previous 24 campaigns (eliminations of the fourth round in 2010-11 and 2014-15).
Chelsea was unable to find an equalizer after the 57th -minute goal of Mitoma, despite the chances of Enzo Fernandez, Cole Palmer and Tyrique George, but Maresca noticed that his team had to concentrate on better protecting their Leads.
“It's certainly a shame, undoubtedly,” Maresca thought. “We have to learn how to win games 1-0. I often said.
“In the same way, in the last match against West Ham, we lost but in the end we won 2-1. That is part of the season, part of football, sometimes you are down and win and sometimes it happens like [against Brighton].
“But I said to the players and said again weeks ago-that we as a team have to learn to win games with 1-0. That's what big teams do.”
In the meantime, Brighton bounced back from a thumping 7-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League in their last match with this victory at the Amex Stadium.
The seagulls, who limited Chelsea to just one shot on goal, reached the fifth round of the FA Cup for the third consecutive season, the first time they have done this in their history.
Head coach Fabian Hurzeler was happy with the reaction that his team showed after that heavy loss.
“Great reaction. We showed character after that start. I am proud of how they came back. It is not easy. That's why it was well deserved,” Hurzeler told BBC Sport.
“It was a solidarity on the field. It is a team performance. They bounced back; they stayed together. They did not turn fingers after losing. They took the owner.
“We always try to stay grounded and work hard. We try not to become euphoric after a good victory or panic after a defeat.
“That is why we all love football because you can bounce back. It is not always going up, it is downs. In life it is important to know that a successful journey is not a comfortable journey.”
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