Loftus-Cheek earning his minutes deservedly from Tuchel

He didn’t even have an assigned squad number at first; now he’s made an appearance in three of our last four games, starting one. On Saturday, he was the one option off the bench who impacted our game most positively as we tried to engineer a comeback against Manchester City.

While those efforts proved unsuccessful, Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s 15 minutes impressed most observers, including his head coach.

“I was happy with Ruben, otherwise he could not have had the chance to come on. He played against Zenit and he played against Aston Villa, and now he played this 15 minutes. He could not be involved without deserving it.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Chelsea FC

Loftus-Cheek has quickly gone from the fringes to a growing first-team role in the last few weeks. He stayed in the summer almost as an afterthought, added to our Premier League and Champions League squads simply because we had the room and he was one of the few who were unable to secure loan moves.

Given the congested fixture list (not to mention potential injuries and fitness concerns among our midfielders), RLC could be earning plenty more opportunities at Chelsea instead going forward. Two years and change removed from his Achilles rupture, hopefully he can keep building on these performances.