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The last four days have turned out to be a rather accurate distillation of Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s stop-start professional career so far, with the 21-year-old going from relatively obscurity to the heights of hype, only to fall back down and land in the treatment room. For the third time in just the last 12-13 months, he’s appeared to suffer a back injury as he trudged off slowly in the first half of England’s friendly against Brazil.
This is the biggest concern with him right now, Eddie Newton mentioned it last week too. He needs to put together months of games on end rather than remain in and out. https://t.co/pBFYL5PSXK
— Chelsea Youth (@chelseayouth) November 14, 2017
After playing the full game on Friday against Germany and garnering universal praise, we were all excited to see what he could do against a willing Brazilian side, who, unlike Germany, were not holding back with their starting lineup. But his day ended after just a half hour, bringing to mind missed opportunities both at the start and the end of last season due to similar injuries, which also caused him to miss England’s U21 Euro campaign over the summer as well.
Loftus-Cheek and back issues, a worse love story than even Twilight.
— Dávid Pásztor (@D_Peezy) November 14, 2017
Hopefully it’s nothing too serious and he’ll be back ready to play when the Premier League resumes this weekend. He’s already missed several games for Palace this season with a different injury.