Chelsea defender Gary Cahill admits they were poor for defeat at Crystal Palace.

The skipper pulled no punches in his assessment of the defeat to Palace, their second reverse in a row in the league.

"We have got many international players here who were away," Cahill told chelseafc.com. "And there are people who came back at different times in the week, which isn't ideal for the manager I'm sure, but that's part and parcel. We need to be ready, we need to be more lively than that, and with the basics, second balls, things like that, we were missing out on. It's unlike us.

"It was a good start from them, and bad start from our point of view, but we have got enough experience in there. We went 1-0 down and that's not the end of the world. We got back into it and from then on we should have gone to second and third gear. We could have settled the game down but we never did. Conceding on the stroke of half-time is the worst time to concede.

"We tried to put pressure on and commit bodies forward, and we had our spells, but chances wise it was few and far between. It was a frustrating day."