Chelsea midfielder Ross Barkley is delighted being granted a central No10 chance by manager Thomas Tuchel.

Barkley has worked his way into Tuchel's plans in recent months and has been played centrally.

He told the club's website: "For a player like me, the training sessions we do are great, because you're constantly checking for the spaces and trying to receive it on the half-turn and then be direct towards goal. You're not getting it and playing it out wide too much, it's the directness of turning and playing to goal.

"You're trying to get into that space to turn, so I'm scanning constantly to see where the pockets are. And with the likes of Jorginho playing, he's always going to try and thread that ball into the space, so that's the stuff we worked on.

"It's a credit to the manager, because when you train under him, he is really intelligent in understanding a player. After the last few months, he obviously understands me as a player now. He knows what I can bring through me getting game time.

"Playing in that role is great for me, to affect games. I played there when I was younger, I haven't played there for a while, so then to play there again, it was really exciting to be back in that position with a better game understanding than when I was younger.

"The manager doesn't really want you to be too disciplined in possession as an attacker, because he wants you to have freedom to create, freedom to take players on and freedom to be direct. That's the message he gets across before you come on or before you start. He wants you to do what you do in training, really, and you don't feel pressure. Through the way you train, you know what you can produce in the games."