Chelsea may not have signed anyone in the transfer window but our squad could receive a significant boost if certain injured players, namely Christian Pulisic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, just come back to fitness. Both of them could easily turn matches like the 2-2 draw against Leicester into wins.
While Pulisic remains on track to return after the winter break (ed.note: contrary to recent headlines about a “setback”, which referenced Lampard talking about Pulisic missing the games before the break), the situation is less clear with Loftus-Cheek.
The 24-year-old, who has yet to be able to play under Lampard, got to lace up his boots for a training ground match today, getting some pseudo-match action for the first time in nearly nine months, since suffering the Achilles rupture in the charity match against New England Revolution in mid-May.
Ruben completed 60 minutes in the closed doors friendly against Brentford B, and according reports, he showed “no ill effects”, which is certainly great.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek took another step in his long recovery today, playing 60 minutes for Chelsea development squad in a behind-closed-doors game at Cobham.
— Liam Twomey (@liam_twomey) February 4, 2020
Full story with @SJohnsonSport and @domfifield on @TheAthleticUK here https://t.co/Z06sFJPaim #CFC
Goals from midfield is something that Chelsea have been really missing. Loftus-Cheek scored 10 goals by himself last season — meanwhile Jorginho, Kante and Kovacic have 12 goals combined, with fully half of those coming from 6 Jorginho penalties.
However, as Lampard stated previously, there is still no set date for Loftus-Cheek’s return, and he’s likely still quite some time away from making his return to the senior team and playing regularly. Perhaps next month?
As Lampard stated last week, there's still no timeframe for Loftus-Cheek's return to first-team action. They'll use the rest of the February break to continue building his fitness with a view to more development squad appearances #CFC
— Liam Twomey (@liam_twomey) February 4, 2020
Whatever amount of time it takes, we should make sure that Loftus-Cheek is back for good rather than rush things. Last season, he proved his importance to the squad by adding dribbling, goals, physicality and creativity to our midfield. Hopefully, he can do the same upon his return and put his injury behind him for good.