Luke Ayling has called on Leeds United's senior players to ease the burden on their young attacking talents like Crysencio Summerville and Wilfried Gnonto. The Whites youngsters have been impressive in recent weeks, but the squad's ability to turn chances into goals in recent weeks has taken a nosedive.
Chelsea would ensure the points stayed in London, with Wesley Fofana's header the only goal of the game. Javi Gracia's side showed an improvement in terms of solidity at the back after a nervy opening 20 minutes, but were unable to find a way through at the other end.
Speaking to LUFC, Ayling said: "We felt like we come here and played okay in spells. To let a goal in from a corner is always disappointing because we felt we did alright in the second half.
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"Then I thought first half they had a few chances, which we spoke about at half-time and did well in the second half with. It's always disappointing to lose a goal on a set-piece.
"We could have marked tighter and it's always disappointing to score from a set-piece. You know your roles and you know the players you've got to pick up and sometimes a player does a nice leap and scores a goal, which is disappointing for us, but it's always disappointing to let a goal in like that."
Chelsea may have been in the midst of a difficult patch, but after spending £600million in two transfer windows, the quality is still evident in the Blues squad. Something that Ayling was keen to point out at full-time.
"They're good players and they know how to play football, okay they're going through a bit of a bad spell at the moment but they're a very good team with very good players," he added. "They can always turn up in games and I felt like in the first half they played really well.
"Their way of playing was really good, their movement off the ball caused us problems. Then I felt like we did okay to slow them down a little bit. The first 20 minutes was tough but after that, we came into the game and played well.
"At half-time we spoke about those problems and put them right. I felt like we did alright in the second half."
Leeds again showed their lack of sting in the final third. Illan Meslier's late header in stoppage time equalling the amount of shots on target from any outfield player in their last two away Premier League games.
Ayling said: "I think us as a team we've been playing well in the last few games and to come here we had the belief to win the game and I felt like we did that in spells and made some good chances. We probably should've come away with a draw in the end.
"I know they had a lot of the ball but we had chances in the second-half that we could have taken a lot better."
Cyrsencio Summerville was one of the standout performers on the day for the Whites, but he couldn't find a way to break through the Blues backline. When asked about a moment of quality from Summerville potentially being the difference in keeping the Whites up, Ayling said: "Yeah, players like him, players like Willy [Gnonto], our front players have been doing really well.
"We've got five or six injured players back home who are massive to us. They're players with a lot of experience so hopefully we'll be getting some of them back in the next couple of weeks to add to the young players we've got here.
"It's down to us as a whole squad. We can't just put everything on Cree [Summerville], Willy and players like that. It comes from the whole squad and we'll be fighting every minute of every game."
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