Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho hailed the way his side made up for their low confidence in the win over Aston Villa.
Diego Costa scored on his return to the team, before an Alan Hutton own goal gave them a 2-0 victory at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon.
The win was only Chelsea's third of the Premier League season as they have massively stuttered early in their title defence, and Mourinho was happy with how his side approached the match.
"When you have bad results and you are unhappy and frustrated, sometimes players lose a little bit of their confidence," he told Sky Sports.
"We spoke about it and the players knew clearly to compensate for that, and until the results arrive, we need to give extra things, we need to put extra ingredients in the game. And they did.
"The team was good tactically, mentally it was really good, we could already see some very good performances and improvements from the last couple of matches, so it was good for us."
The Blues now go on a run of three away games as they travel to Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League on Tuesday, before visiting West Ham in the Premier League and then taking on Stoke in the Capital One Cup.
And Mourinho admitted he knew how vital it was for his side to win on their return from the international break, although he is not concerned by their current position.
"It's always important to win, especially when the results are not good, and especially when the position in the table is really bad," he added.
"I keep repeating, we are not afraid of being relegated - we know that in two or three months' time we'll be in the position we have to be, in the top five or six at least.
"But in this moment we are not there and we need points. Today we got the victory at home - three points we clearly deserved and three points the boys on the pitch really fought hard for."