Tuchel hails Cech and Granovskaia after dealing with Lukaku

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has hailed the role Petr Cech and Marina Granovskaia played in dealing with Romelu Lukaku following the star's explosive interview with Italian media.

Extracts from the interview were released last week, with Lukaku expressing his unhappiness with life at Stamford Bridge since making a Chelsea club-record transfer from Inter Milan in the summer.

The Belgian striker had specifically talked about his struggles to adapt to Tuchel's 3-4-2-1 formation as one of the reasons for his unhappiness in England in the wake of his return to the Blues.

The interview prompted a furious reaction from Tuchel, with the German dropping his star striker from the matchday squad for the crucial clash with title rivals Liverpool on Sunday.

HAVE YOUR SAY! Has Thomas Tuchel handled the Romelu Lukaku interview in the right way? Comment below.

With Lukaku out of the side, Christian Pulisic started up-front and the American scored Chelsea's second goal in the 2-2 draw that has left them 10 points behind leaders Manchester City.

The Belgian striker is now set to return to Tuchel's squad though having had showdown talks with the Chelsea manager this week.

Those meetings led to Lukaku apologising for his actions and he is now available for selection once again.

Tuchel's strong stance was backed by club chiefs, and the German has hailed technical director Cech and director Granovsakia for placing their trust in him during the turbulent period.

"There will be some discipline actions of course and he will accept it; what happened, happened. Something happened, he will be fined and of course he needs to accept it," said Tuchel.

"It's not about I push my opinions through or the club pushes their opinions through, we are adults and we reflect the situation.

"The more the story went on I had a clear opinion and I was happy that was OK with the club to go with it. And I had a feeling it was really OK, as I also spoke to the other players.

"We have a very open, close relationship and we can find very quick solutions, without any political interference, putting every disturbing factor aside and just looking at the issue isolated on the moment and from there we went.

"And it was very nice to be a part of it. Between Petr, Marina and me it was very calm, very quick and very open."

Though he is understood to have been left blindsided by Lukaku's comments, the Belgian's apology has helped to repair the relationship.

Chelsea now believe the matter is closed and Tuchel insisted that the Blues have dealt with Lukaku fairly having taken time to consider their options.

"First of all, we were even in the background happy that we took the time that it needed to look calmly on it and talk calmly," he added.

"He apologised and is back in the squad for training. For me the most important thing was to understand and clearly understand and believe that it was not intentional.

"He did not do this intentionally to create noise in front of such a big game. And it's the very first time even he has behaved like this.

"He's very aware of what happened, and what he created, and he feels the responsibility to clean the mess up.

"We have to adapt to it and it created some negative noise that we have to deal with. But there are zero doubts on his commitment to the team and the club."