With working under a government licence at the end of last season and undergoing a change of ownership, there was a hold-up before firm intentions could be put in place and then negotiations for players could begin. Tuchel describes what has followed as at times ‘quite turbulent’ but he is pleased with the outcome.

‘We agreed to try for a small number of names very early,’ he details. ‘Then the amount of names got a bigger, the amount of names we discussed was endless, and it was sometimes a bit confusing and distracting, but in the end we managed to focus back on the names we mentioned in the first place, and to stay calm and not get distracted.

‘Sometimes you think an opportunity comes up but it's somebody using us to get a better contract somewhere else,’ he explained.

‘Then it was business as usual for any transfer period, you try for some players and you don't succeed. What makes me very happy is that every player we signed we absolutely wanted, and we wanted very early, even if very early for was being late in the market.

‘We decided very early these could be ones to improve our squad and then we have these players now, so that's very promising.’

Tuchel jokes that when directly involved in working through the names and the possibilities, there was the danger of ending up having to select a highly unbalanced 2-7-1 formation. He laughs as he says that is the point to have a cold shower, calm down and refocus on exactly what is needed.

‘What was very obvious from the beginning and was proved right is the ambition from Todd [Boehly] and Behdad [Eghbali] especially to do things right for Chelsea and for this team.
‘It's very ambitious, they're hard working and they demand it from everybody, so that was not a problem, but it was sometimes turbulent and it was sometimes also distracting and it was not 100 per cent calm.

‘So what helped was time, what helped was being back at Cobham, because it calms everybody down because it's our environment. We know what we're doing now to prepare for our match.

‘Seeing that we succeed in transfer market also calmed me down, so it was like a give and take for for everybody. It is what we want because the strengths of Chelsea was that it was calm not only from inside but also from outside, and we have to do everything to reach this status again.

‘We try to refocus this week completely on Everton and I feel the team focused and everybody calmed down, and I'm convinced that we are ready to compete with Everton for the win.’