"For Kai [Havertz], I'm very pleased because Kai has been very strong for a few weeks now," Thomas Tuchel told a press conference after Chelsea defeated Lille 2-0 in the Champions League.
"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."
However, Tuchel is still considering bringing Romelu Lukaku back in for the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool on 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."
Havertz opened the score against Lille within eight minutes, a huge contrast to Lukaku's latest performance when he only had seven touches of the ball in 90 minutes.
As Tuchel fairly noted, however, Lukaku had started 10 games in a row prior to this game, which is very unusual for the boss who tends to rotate his squad extensively.
