Instead it was with the player who made the Pulisic goal with an outstanding run and pass, and whi picked up UEFA’s man of the match award for his overall display – N’Golo Kante.It is performance the boss believes the midfielder has been building towards for some time.‘N’Golo has had some problems to find the strength and rhythm after his injury and after he was out for some games and he was back on top level,’ Tuchel declared.‘He got better every minute throughout the game, and instantly it has a huge impact, but this is not a surprise. We were waiting for some games now and today he found his rhythm and the impact was huge.

Good feeling

On the performance overall, Tuchel was pleased with the result and the way we kept Lille at bay, but thought it was a fitful in quality.‘We had very strong for periods, for example for the first 10 minutes, but we also have in the same game these periods where it's totally gone from one second to another. Easy ball losses and a lack of fluidity and bad decisions, and then we recover from it and we have strong phases again.‘This is a bit the story at the moment, but there are very good things in it. If we can maybe keep it up on that level and then make the good minutes longer and a bit more consistent, this is maybe the next step.

‘It was a very well-prepared opponent today. They were very aggressive, they were very physical so it was necessary to step up and be mentally tough and defensively super solid, and this is what we did. We did not allow them chances and it gave us a good feeling throughout the whole match.’

‘It was a very well-prepared opponent today. They were very aggressive, they were very physical so it was necessary to step up and be mentally tough and defensively super solid, and this is what we did. We did not allow them chances and it gave us a good feeling throughout the whole match.’

Striker selection

Tuchel decided to play Havertz as the central striker with Romelu Lukaku starting, and remaining on the bench, with the boss explaining that Lukaku had suffered from tiredness recently and that with such focus on the number of touches he had in the Crystal Palace match, it was not the time to keep the attention upon him.

‘For Kai I'm very pleased because Kai has been very strong for a few weeks now,’ praised Tuchel. ‘He really stepped up and the effort is immense, the work-rate is immense, the areas of the pitch that he covers for us is very good.

‘We had a very aggressive high line today with the offensive three players together. The formation was to have intensity and high work-rate consistently throughout the whole match.’With the Carabao Cup final next, Tuchel was asked what his striker selection means in this game means for Sunday.‘Every game is different. The focus today was on intensity, a high-speed game and lots of hard work against the ball, off the ball, to have intensive teamwork and Romelu has struggled in the last games a little bit to deliver that.‘That's what I meant when I said he was tired, not only mentally tired but also physically tired, which I can understand.‘Since the Liverpool game [on 2 January] he started every match for us and there was some extra-time as well. It is like this and today we went for three other players and Kai is in good shape with a lot of confidence and work-rate.‘That was the decision today. For Sunday, we have four days to decide and to recover and of course Romelu has every chance to play.’

On Kovacic and Ziyech

One downside to the Lille game was the loss, within a few second-half minutes of each other, of in-form Mateo Kovacic and Hakim Ziyech to injury, especially with the cup final on the horizon.

‘I don’t know on the injuries just yet,’ said Tuchel.

‘I should have substituted Kova earlier, perhaps at half-time, so we could have saved a change. I didn’t see Hakim’s injury and I haven’t spoken to the doctor for an update just yet.

‘It’s a little bit like the story of the season for us, doing substitutions for injuries instead of for tactical reasons. But today is Tuesday, the League Cup final is on Sunday so hopefully it won’t be too bad and we will have enough time to recover players in time for another big game.’