Owen Hargreaves described Chelsea’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek as ‘unstoppable,’ after the England international scored a superbly taken hat-trick against BATE Borisov last night in the Europa League.
Loftus-Cheek has long been heralded as one of the biggest talents to come through Chelsea’s youth academy in recent years, although he has struggled to make it into the Blues match day squad let alone their starting XI for much of this season.
However, the former Manchester United midfielder reckons last nights match-winning performance could be a major turning point in the highly-rated 22-year-old’s career.
“There’s been a lot of talk about Ruben Loftus-Cheek recently and tonight he was an unstoppable force – I think this performance can turn his Chelsea career around,’’ Hargreaves told BT Sport.
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”Loftus-Cheek has everything – but tonight he has specialised – he’s a goalscoring midfielder now. He can give that to his manager now.
”This is the most important moment of his career, now he has shown everyone what he’s capable of. Now, he needs to show he can do it again, he needs to show that he can become a feature. And if he can’t do it at Chelsea, he needs to go on a two-year loan.”
Despite his heroics last night Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri did warn Loftus-Cheek that that he still has a fight on his hands to nail down a regular spot in the Stamford Bridge outfit’s star-studded midfield which features the likes N’Golo Kante, Mateo Kovacic, Ross Barkley, Cesc Fabregas and Jorginho.
Next up for Chelsea is an away trip to Burnley this Sunday in the Premier League.