Fabian Hurzeler watches his side in action at Chelsea (Image: Simon Dack)
Fabian Hurzeler watches his side in action at Chelsea (Image: Simon Dack)
Fabian Hurzeler said Chelsea’s expensively-assembled individual talent proved the difference at Stamford Bridge.
And, as he prepared to assess what they could have done better, he stressed he was proud of his team's efforts.
The Seagulls went down 4-3 having trailed 3-0 around the half-hour mark.
Morgan Rogers and Joao Pedro caused problems before Cole Palmer, who was generally kept quiet, scored what proved to be the winner.
Albion boss Hurzeler said: “I think the difference was in certain moments, they just had this individual quality.
“I think if you spend so much money on these kind of players, for Rogers, for Palmer, for Joao (Pedro), then of course for a team like Chelsea can rely on this individual quality, and they showed it in certain moments of the game.
“That's a little bit what we need to reflect, because I mentioned before this balance of controlling the game, dominating the game, but also have this defensive ability.
“If you can't defend these kinds of moments, then we have to be more disciplined by having better defensive plans, by reacting better when we lose the ball.
“There were certain phases of the game where we weren't at our highest level regarding these things.
“That's why I said there's still plenty of things to improve, but also plenty of things to be proud of.
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“Overall, I think we weren't brilliant at the basics, we weren't clean enough in doing simple things right.
“In certain moments we missed the balance between the defensive stability and controlling the game.
“That's definitely something we have to improve, but coming here to this place and creating that many chances, having that many times of the game the ball, causing that many problems for Chelsea is something where I have to give my players a lot of credit.
“We will analyse the game, we will make a step in our process, we will make a step in our development and we will keep trying to improve the boys and then let's see how it continues.”