The 26-year-old has featured in our past six matches, starting four of those, including at right wing-back in victories against Southampton and Real Madrid.

This new role has come with additional responsibilities that require concentration, defensive discipline and durability up and down the flank, all of which have been on display in some of Loftus-Cheek’s most impressive performances under Tuchel.

However, the boss believes there is still much more to come and that talk of an England return ahead of the winter World Cup in Qatar remains far too premature.

‘I don’t want to ruin his mood but I think the last thing that Ruben needs right now is to think about the World Cup,’ said Tuchel.

‘Even from the outside in Paris and Germany, we knew the player all the time. It was so promising but he is at a certain age now and he never had his breakthrough.

‘Everybody is still waiting for the next step so for him it’s crucial to focus on the very day where he is. It can be a huge distraction for him to think what can be in a week, two weeks or a month ahead.’

Despite Tuchel urging the versatile midfielder to keep his feet on the ground and his mind fixed on the task at hand, the German has also outlined how he can improve further with more self-belief in his attributes and physical strengths.

Consistency is also key, something Loftus-Cheek has occasionally struggled with throughout a stop-start career, and accumulating a run of strong performances is a challenge the boss has laid down to our number 12.

‘We speak a lot about this - that he is still gifted to be here and it’s still a huge opportunity,’ continued Tuchel. ‘He has everything that it takes otherwise he would not play and we would not count on him.

‘But he has heard this for so many years that maybe he heard it too much, throughout the Academy level and all the loans. Everybody was telling him how good the potential is and how big the future can be but the future is only there if you live up to it in the present.

‘He needs to trust himself. With him, it’s absolutely not a matter of over-confidence, it’s the opposite. He needs to have confidence in his body physically and also in his ability to do it not once or twice but 10 or 20 times in a row. This is the next step and the next step is actually to do it the third time in a row because he was excellent in Southampton.

‘It’s little steps and it might sound like it’s far too little steps given the potential and what’s in there, given the performances that he can produce but it’s actually not. It’s the only way for him to go in these little steps, to grow in confidence and become the player finally that he can be.’

For the man with the big stride to keep taking those little steps, Loftus-Cheek must draw on the experiences of recent weeks, particularly his efforts in our memorable performance at the Bernabeu in midweek, during which he charged up and down the right for close to two hours on the biggest of stages.

Tuchel believes exertions like that are just as important for Loftus-Cheek’s ongoing trust in his body, particularly after so many career-stalling injuries, far more than the self-evident physical attributes which he possesses.

‘Self-confidence does not come from being big and tall and good-looking, which he is, but it comes also from experience,’ added the boss. ‘I still have the feeling that Ruben is maybe himself a bit surprised that he can do it for 105 minutes in this kind of position.

‘He needs to reimpose that because he can do it in training but he needs to do it in games, which is very different from that. He’s a very nice guy, a very quiet guy, so it’s not over-confidence but the opposite. He needs to impose it by keeping the focus, trusting himself and also pushing himself to the next game and pushing himself to the physical limit.

‘He’s not fully aware what he can produce, what he can physically give and I think he is still in the situation where he accepts limits too early. We will keep on pushing and hopefully he can produce a third, a fourth and more of these performances.’

You can hear from Ruben Loftus-Cheek on his recent form, earning the trust of Thomas Tuchel and the important part Sunday's opponents Crystal Palace played in his career in an exclusive interview on the Chelsea website and The 5th Stand app tomorrow morning.