Liverpool arrive in south-west London on Sunday afternoon currently a point and a place behind the Blues in the Premier League standings, albeit having played one game fewer.

However, it is Manchester City currently setting the pace out front having extended their lead to eight points in midweek as Tuchel’s men dropped points at home to Brighton and the Reds lost at Leicester.

That growing gap has led some pundits to ponder over whether City retaining the title is now just an inevitability, though Tuchel is not prepared to wave the white flag just yet.

‘We don’t give up anything because why should we stop in the middle of the race?’ said the boss.

‘We don’t really think about this stuff too much. We do think about who plays, what we tell the team today, how we approach the team.

‘I know other people think a lot about this but we actually never do.’

However, the Chelsea head coach accepts our recent home form, with one win in five league matches at Stamford Bridge, has proved costly and would otherwise have placed his side in a much more favourable position at the turn of the calendar year.

‘We had three games at home now where we conceded late equalisers after dominating all the statistics, with clearly better chances but we are purely unlucky,’ he continued.

‘It’s a matter of six points that we lose because you have three draws instead of three wins so it obviously hurts us because with six points more we would have a completely different feeling around New Year’s Eve.

‘We have the feeling that we invest a lot and squeeze the lemon but it’s like squeezing the same lemon over and over again but expecting there always to be fresh juice coming out.

'It’s hard because we’re so ambitious but this is not the first time in my career, and for sure not the first time in the players’ careers, to have days like this where things feel a bit more heavy.

‘When we are in upset mode like this, it’s sometimes good to make the focus a bit wider and look at the bigger picture, remember what we did in the year 2021 and accept that we are still going in the right direction.’

An electric atmosphere at the Bridge in our first game of 2022 could be a difference-maker and Tuchel is hopeful that the start of a safe standing trial in some areas of the ground could provide an extra boost to the noise and support.

‘I was not aware of it but I’m happy for the fans because I guess they like it and they want certain areas where they can have the possibility to watch a game standing and be a bit more emotional,’ Tuchel added.

‘Safety is first and we can all agree on that. We are used to it in Germany, that there are big sections in the stadiums where fans can stand and it’s a very traditional thing but safe at the same time.

‘Hopefully it will give the extra boost to our supporters because we absolutely need them on their best level right in this moment and right in the very first game of the new year against Liverpool.’