Our head coach during his Friday media conference explained the club is looking into the market for possible moves that make sense, but without feeling high pressure to do so.Unlike Ben Chilwell on the other flank who is out for the season, James is expected to return from a hamstring tear before too long, but even then the crowded fixture programme is focusing minds, as Tuchel explains as he revisits the topic of the transfer window.‘If you are out for some weeks, and you don't know how fast the process is for coming back, you can lose a lot of matches,’ he says.

‘If you have this in the wrong time you can lose Club World Cup matches, you can lose Champions League matches, you can lose crucial Carabao Cup matches and league matches. With four or five weeks out you can lose 10 to 12 matches. This can be too much.’Looking at the current squad, whether he is playing a three-man defence with wing-backs as he has done for the majority of the season, or a back-four as against Tottenham midweek, Tuchel highlights that he has only one player who is ideal to fit where Reece James may have played.‘If we play in the back-five, it's Azpi, if we play a back-four and the need is maybe a bit more defensive full-back with different characteristics to protect the offensive players, it is also Azpi. Maybe it could be Trevoh Chalobah but he is out with injury.

‘So we were running out of options. If you talk about Christian Pulisic or Callum Hudson-Odoi, they can for sure only play wing-back, this is only fair to them. It's not their preferred position and they cannot show their full potential if they play there, and they can for sure not play full-back.‘So you lose options not only personnel-wise but also in tactics and formation. That's why we look into the market and we check our options but in the end it needs to make sense, it's not only pure numbers. It's needs to be a good mix of high quality, high-level attitude and character.‘If we had a full squad I would love to say we do nothing [in the transfer market] because we're only happy, but we have this issue and that's why we look into what's possible.’