In recent weeks the Blues have dropped points in the Premier League despite continuing to play well, with our finishing letting us down most notably in the home draws against Burnley, Manchester United and Everton.

For Tuchel it is frustrating because he sees high output from a group of players depleted by injury and illness, but then not the outcome to match.

‘We are in a place where you don’t want to be,’ he began.

‘We have had good performances – sometimes very good – but we don’t have the results for them.

‘If you have bad performances and you don’t have the results, you just focus on the performance. You speak it out loud, get the details better, do whatever needs to be done to make the performance better and increase the possibility of a result.

‘If you had a bad performance and you get a good result, even better because you are still in the place where you can focus on the bad performance, but you win and have that atmosphere.

‘In this space where we are, it’s tricky,’ he continued.

‘We lost two points against Manchester United because we did a silly mistake. We were clearly the better team. I saw many teams struggle more against West Ham than we did, but we lose with a freak shot in the last minute. And I refuse to analyse the Everton match from the result.

‘We are getting punished for not a lot. It’s hard to accept.’

How can we start stringing out more consistent results, just as we were early in the season? That is the big question for Tuchel and his staff, but he is refusing to let the final scoreline cloud his judgement when it comes to individual and collective performances.

‘Maybe you have to admit you don’t have the one solution that fixes the problem, but it can help to speak out and be honest about it,’ he acknowledged.

‘It seems to be a pattern, but only if you look at the result. If you look only at the results in football, you can be horribly misled. Putting maximum focus on the result because they are not going your way is a big risk. This can lead to frustration and behaviour that makes you play bad. I absolutely don’t want to end up there.

‘I encourage the team to go, do it again and believe. Why should we not? The last results are not what we expect, a bit up and down, and maybe we struggle with praise, but it’s not one reason.

‘We are always looking for reasons. We want to have doubts, and have the results be the proof for the performance, but I don’t see big things going wrong.’