Loftus-Cheek back at Chelsea for treatment as he bids to play again this season

Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s promising (and long overdue) first loan away from Chelsea was rudely interrupted by an ankle injury last month, one which, if it requires surgery, would even rule him out for the rest of the season.

Since the extent of the injury was revealed, as per standard procedure, Loftus-Cheek has been back at Cobham to make use of Chelsea’s own medical and training facilities to aid in his, for now, non-surgical recovery.

All eyes are on now the success of this initial treatment, set to last for another couple weeks, as revealed by Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson, who had been quite impressed with the youngster since taking over a few months ago.

“Chelsea insist on having him back there on this period of rehabilitation, so we won’t really know until such time that they release him back to us. The agreement was that he would spend two to three weeks without having an surgical intervention, in the hope that the problem he has will be resolved naturally.”

“During that time, Chelsea have insisted they take care of that because they regard him as their player. We will now wait for that period to pass, then he’ll come back to us. We will then test whether or not the injury is still there or whether, as they think, the injury has cleared up. So there’s another 10-14 days to go before I can tell you anything about Ruben Loftus-Cheek at all. I haven’t seen him literally for 10 days.”

While Hodgson sounds a bit aggrieved, Loftus-Cheek has not been recalled officially, so if he does recover in time and does not need surgery, he would surely return to Palace and finish out his season-long loan.

“We do not have anybody lined up we want to loan that would even encourage us to send Ruben Loftus-Cheek back. Secondly, we still think he might recovery from this injury quicker than has initially been suggested. We want him with us at an important time of the season to help us win game to help us stay in the league.”

“So there has not been a question of us sending him back. The questions have been around the treatment and where the treatment should take place. That is something that goes on between the medical departments and is bound by the contract we signed with Chelsea.”

-Roy Hodgson; source: Guardian

Loftus-Cheek has had more than his fair share of injuries already in his young career. Here’s hoping he recovers quickly from this one and gets a chance to impress once again before next season (and maybe help nick of a few points off our rivals in the process).