Loftus-Cheek eager to earn England call-up

Ruben Loftus-Cheek

thinks that he is qualified enough to feature for England and is dreaming of playing in the World Cup in Qatar.

The

midfielder got his maiden call-up to Gareth Southgate’s team when he was playing for

on a loan deal in 2017, pulling off a man-of-the-match display during his debut against Germany.

He then made it to Southgate’s 23-man party for the World Cup in 2018 and featured as a substitute in the victory over Tunisia.

However, he did not make an appearance for the remainder of the tournament, in which England lost against Croatia, with injuries forcing him to withdraw from the national team.

He suffered a ruptured Achilles in May 2019 that had him sidelined for more than a year; however, the 26-year-old now plays regularly for Chelsea under Thomas Tuchel’s reign after playing for Fulham on loan last season.

"It's always a dream for me to play for England at a World Cup, so it was an incredible experience to be part of the squad in 2018 off the back of my first full Premier League season at Crystal Palace," he told Sky Sports. 

"I was feeling good but I've not been in the fold now for a while. I still want to play for England and I still believe my qualities will allow me to.

"I'll keep pushing but the focus right now is on getting a top-four finish and winning the FA Cup with Chelsea."

The player will not focus on his side’s FA Cup final against Liverpool on Saturday.

"Chelsea have always brought through talent and made talent coming through the ranks,"

he added.

"For me, maybe I didn't really have anyone to look up to. Other than John Terry, there weren't players coming through from the academy to the first team regularly.

"I didn't have the idol to look up to and see where I could go but now you see the players who have reached the first team and hopefully the boys can see there is a pathway and see it can be done in different ways.

"You might not just go straight through, you might have to go on loan, but the pathway is there to end up in the Chelsea first team.

"If you're coming through from the Under 18s or Under 23s, just training with the first team can help so much.

"You can soak in so much information, but it does reach a point where you've played with the first team for a bit and you feel you can handle that level then for sure there's no substitute for playing regularly – whether that's in the Championship or a different country.

"You just need to get that stimulus of playing every week, and that's the foundation of your footballing knowledge. It helps you to better understand your body.

"I didn't necessarily have that consistency growing up so it was very difficult for me to have that base of fitness and confidence in myself but everyone has a different journey.

"Hopefully we can inspire those boys in the Under-23s and below that it can be done."

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