"Tuchel was one of the reasons I went to Chelsea, he’s a great coach," Denis Zakaria said in an interview with Blick, as quoted by the Daily Mail.
"But now we haven’t had much time with him’ ‘I might have a new chance with the new coach, about whom I’ve heard a lot of good things. I will work a lot to get my place."
"Not at all, everything happened very quickly," he said about joining Chelsea on the deadline day.
"I only knew six hours before the end of the transfer window that a move to Chelsea was a possibility.
"I packed my bags and waited for the documents to be signed. Then I had my medical in Turin and it was done — it was very close. I heard [about Liverpool's interest] from my agent, but in the end it was Chelsea."
The midfielder joined Chelsea on loan from Juventus on the final day of the transfer window.
He didn't get a chance to play under Thomas Tuchel though — the German was sacked just a few days after Zakaria's arrival.