Lukaku’s intention was to try to repair his relationship with Internazionale supporters, who were upset with his £97.5 million move to Chelsea. But the interview has backfired spectacularly and Tuchel did not rule out Lukaku facing a club fine, confirming that he would meet with the player about his comments and recommending the 28-year-old now keeps his mouth shut in public.

“We will do it [talk] behind closed doors, openly, like I think the relationship is and has always been, so no further comments in public on that,” said Tuchel.

Asked how to get the best of Lukaku, Tuchel added: “Training, training, playing. Training, playing, training, sleeping, eating good, training, playing, sleeping, eating good, drink a lot of water, sleep, train and don’t give interviews.

“The thing with Romelu, I don’t think anyone in this building is aware that he’s unhappy and that’s what makes us very surprised about this statement because I can see no reason why this should be like this. That’s all I can say until I wait to see what Romelu says and then we can deal with it.”

On the impact of Lukaku’s interview, at a time when Chelsea have fallen eight points behind Premier League leaders Manchester City, and face Liverpool next, Tuchel said: “I don’t like it, of course, because it brings noise that we don’t need. We need a calm environment and focus, and it does not help.”

Tuchel also insisted that Lukaku has not approached him about feeling any dissatisfaction, despite the striker previously claiming they had shared conversations about him being “multidimensional” and requiring “clarity”.

“This is absolutely a super-normal chat,” said Tuchel. “But we have a discussion now where it seems that he was on the bench and we benched him because other players suited our style of playing better.