Ruben Loftus-Cheek is not thinking about a move away from Chelsea, despite limited opportunities in the early days of the Maurizio Sarri era.
The 22-year-old midfielder was shunted out on loan to Crystal Palace last season, where he impressed sufficiently to win a spot in England’s World Cup side.
But while he was part of the squad that made a memorable run to the semi-finals at Russia 2018, he faces a challenge to feature regularly at Chelsea, where there is a plethora of talent in the centre of the field.
He has featured in only 33 minutes of action so far this season, but that has not put him off the challenge.
Indeed, asked if he is thinking of a move back to Palace in January, he replied: “Possibly, but it is still far away, there are still a lot of games to play and I just have to see what happens.
“Right now, I am at Chelsea and my focus is at Chelsea and learning at Chelsea. That is in the future and we will deal with that when it comes.
“I'm not sure when I am going to play. It is just down to me working hard in training, I don't know whether I am going to play or not play but for me it stays the same, I still train well and do everything the right way in case I do play.”
There is a busy period on the horizon for Chelsea, and during it he hopes to make his mark.
“There are a lot of games coming up so I think there will be more opportunities coming for players that are not playing every week,” he added.
"We have to be ready and do our best when we get the chance. We had a lot of talks in the past couple of weeks and Sarri said to me that I need to learn tactically so a lot of my focus and effort is learning his tactics and his ways in training.
“I think the quicker I get then the more opportunities I will get to play. He is helping me and [assistant manager] Gianfranco Zola is helping me every day to learn it as quickly as possible and that is great for me.”
England offered Loftus-Cheek the opportunity to strut his stuff from the outset of Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Switzerland in Leicester, and while he did not hit the heights he wanted to, he was not down about the experience.
“I didn't play as well as I want to but that was my first start of the season so I'm not too down on it,” he said.
“You know, it is the first start of the season and I will build on that, I'm a player where a lot of my game is based on physicality and I obviously didn't feel my fittest but I will build on that today.”
