The Blues head to the South Coast for a Saturday 3pm clash with Southampton, looking to return to winning ways and put the recent home defeats to Brentford and Real Madrid behind us, with Tuchel explaining how he is still supporting Lukaku following his big summer move from Inter Milan.

While the Belgian, who of course is in his second spell at Stamford Bridge, hasn’t hit the same heights as he did with Inter in Serie A so far, Tuchel has said there is still more to come from our record signing and believes Lukaku’s ‘Chelsea chapter’ is ongoing.

‘We wanted Romelu and we bought him because we believed in him, and still do,’ Tuchel explained.

‘Has it worked out in a way everybody wanted so far? No, of course not. It is not on Romelu after two defeats, he didn’t even start these two last matches. We play the cup competitions until the end, we play [FA Cup] semi-final, we play the Carabao Cup final, and the Club World Cup final and we are in the race for top three in the hardest league. We have had one tough result against Real Madrid but we cannot put this on one player.

‘We are still working to make it better. We had a reason to spend this amount of money and he had reasons to come here and complete his Chelsea chapter. This is ongoing.

‘Anything can change in the blink of an eye in football and there was already a chance to have a huge uplift here. As a striker, the story can be written quickly and differently.'Meanwhile, Tuchel has stated that he hopes the club can fast forward any contract negotiations to the summer to avoid any disruption to his players throughout next season.

The boss has often faced questions on the future of numerous defenders in his press conferences this season, with Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Cesar Azpilicueta all out of contract at the end of the current campaign.

Earlier this afternoon, the German was again asked about the future of two of his players, this time regarding central midfield duo N’Golo Kante and Jorginho, who are both out of contract in the summer of 2023.

‘Nobody wants that with players, especially nowadays with big and important players. As a coach it is important that we solve this in the summer, so that it is clear where the journey is,’ he replied.

‘We would have the same talks as we have had Toni and Andreas. We will talk about it through the winter and January. It would be nice to avoid this but, in the moment, it is difficult to handle anything. But yes, of course, this should be the target for all of us.’