Ruben Loftus-Cheek was probably the only player wearing a Chelsea shirt on Sunday at Everton that could be happy with his performance. The 26-year-old midfielder looked like the Blues' only real outlet when the visitors were coming under immense pressure from the hosts.
Loftus-Cheek made his 50th start in a Chelsea shirt at Goodison Park at the weekend, which tells you all you need to know about his time at Stamford Bridge given he made his debut for the club in December 2014. His time at Chelsea, albeit with a few loan spells elsewhere, has been riddled with injury problems, restricting the powerful midfielder from being able to really kick on in his career.
Recently, though, Loftus-Cheek has been in great form, whenever he has been called upon. The problem is, though, Thomas Tuchel has the likes of Jorginho, N'Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic who are seemingly above Loftus-Cheek in the midfield pecking order.
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It's a really difficult task for the English midfielder to force his way into the front of Tuchel's mind, but all he can do is commit himself to training and perform to his best levels when given the opportunity in games. Well, it certainly seems as if Loftus-Cheek is performing well in training after Chelsea released a video of a session at Cobham on their official website.
In the footage, Loftus-Cheek can be seen pretending to shoot, before shifting the ball past Saul Niguez, who ended up on the floor trying to tackle his teammate. Loftus-Cheek then rounded Marcus Bettinelli in the goal and smashed the ball into the back of the net.
The video then cuts to Loftus-Cheek receiving the ball on the edge of the box before curling the ball into the corner past Bettinelli once again with an elegant side-footed finish. Christian Pulisic also looked sharp in the session, with the American showing off his close dribbling ability before laying it off to Loftus-Cheek, who once again fired past Bettinelli.
Of course, this is only a snippet of training, but in the 26-second-long video, Loftus-Cheek looked very good indeed. Tuchel recently spoke about the midfielder and how he needed to "discover the monster" that's inside him.
"He needs to push himself to the limit that is the challenge because is so physical and can be so physical," Tuchel said last month. "He had a bit of a shy game against Arsenal, like everyone. A calm first half against Crystal Palace and then suddenly stepped up in the second half in dribbling and physically with ball recoveries.
"In general, he is shy and a very calm person. He needs to discover this monster in him and unleash this on a regular basis because it is absolutely necessary.
"It is not enough to be just on the pitch. It might if you regard his last years, it may seem as a first step, good that he is a regular, but I am not happy because this is not enough. We cannot let him think it is enough, he needs to constantly push himself to the limit."
