Crystal Palace captain Mile Jedinak was left to rue conceding what he believed to be the "pivotal" opening goal in Sunday's 3-0 Premier League defeat to Chelsea.
Oscar opened the scoring at Selhurst Park when he was found unmarked in the middle of the box to break the deadlock after 29 minutes.
And Jedinak felt the writing was on the wall from that point on, with Willian and Diego Costa completing the victory for the reigning champions.
"I just think when you concede a goal like that in the first half it's not ideal and it probably helps them get their tails up after that," the Australia international said.
"We know they're a good side and it's a false sense of where they are in the table at the moment, but if we had got the first goal then maybe we would have seen a different Chelsea.
"It was pivotal, but we still had a lot of time to get ourselves out of that and the response was okay, but wasn't sustained for long enough and everyone in the dressing room knows that."
Jedinak was disappointed to star the new year with a loss, but remains hopeful the team can put the result behind them in time for the FA Cup clash at Southampton on Saturday.
"We've got to pick ourselves up and rectify that next week," he added. "We'll be back on the training pitch as soon as we can getting ready for Southampton and we know that's going to be tough.
"You don't like to start the year with a loss, but there's plenty of time to change that. Although [it] was a disappointing result we're still pushing forward and we'll be up for the coming fixtures."
