Pedro Neto believes it is important for the Chelsea squad to take personal responsibility for maintaining high standards in matches and in training.

The Portuguese winger is at head coach Enzo Maresca’s disposal again for this afternoon’s Premier League fixture away at Everton, having served his one-match suspension after accumulating five yellow cards in that competition.

Having missed last week’s home win over Brentford, as the suspended Marc Cucurella will do so for today’s match, Neto revealed his excitement to be back, as he hates being unable to contribute.

Furthermore, he accepts he only has himself to blame for his absence from the team last week.

‘To be honest it felt like I was out for a long time! I want to be back with the team, I want to help the team again, so I’m looking forward to that,’ he said.

‘I just want to enjoy my football and want to play every game possible. I was really upset when I came off knowing I would miss the next game, but now I’m really happy to be back.

‘Like the boss has said, we have to improve on this kind of stuff. Mine, I didn’t want to do that to be honest, because I knew that I could be suspended, but I slipped on my feet. Marc knew as well at the end of the game that he couldn’t do this kind of stuff.

‘So we have to improve because we cannot miss players at this time, or ever. All the players are important so we need to have all the squad available.’

That issue of personal responsibility is clearly important to Neto, and extends to his work every day at Cobham.

While he appreciates the driving force of head coach Enzo Maresca pushing the squad to keep improving, he knows it would be wrong to rely on him entirely.

According to the 24-year-old, the most important work ethic and motivation is that which lives inside the players themselves.

‘He asks for the consistency of the hard work and he is really demanding,’ Neto continued. ‘Of course that comes from the coach, but the players as well.

‘We have to take responsibility ourselves to work hard and keep our level high every day, because we have to improve as individuals and that is what we are doing at the moment.

‘I work for myself, I work to improve every day, and I compete against myself every day. We have a lot of quality in the team and we have to continue in the way that we are doing. That’s what we are doing and we have to keep this level of consistency.

‘Training is a high level always, like the boss demands and like we demand from ourselves. That is the level that we have to be, continuing always at this level and even improving.’