Ruben Loftus-Cheek hopes to impress new Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri in the coming weeks but has left to door open to a Crystal Palace return in January.
The England international was heavily linked with another move away from Chelsea in the summer but the Blues held on to the powerful midfielder.
Palace manager Roy Hodgson has already confirmed the club failed to re-sign Loftus-Cheek this summer following an impressive loan stint at the club last season.
Loftus-Cheek was given regular playing time by the Eagles and even worked his way into Gareth Southgate’s England squad for the 2018 World Cup.
The 22-year-old has been limited to just 33 minutes of playing time for Chelsea this season and faces an even harder task of breaking into the first-team following the arrivals of Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic over the summer.
Loftus-Cheek expects to be involved more frequently when Chelsea’s Europa League campaign starts next week but is not completely opposed to returning to Palace for the second half of the season.
“There’s a lot of games coming up, so I think there will be more opportunities coming for players that are not playing every week,” he told The Guardian. “But I’m not sure when I am going to play. It is just down to me working hard in training.
“A lot of my game is based on physicality and I obviously didn’t feel my fittest against Switzerland but I will build on that. I’ve spoken with Sarri in the past couple of weeks and he’s told me I need to learn tactically and his ways in training. The quicker I get that then the more opportunities I will get to play.”
"Possibly but that is still far away," he responded when asked about whether he'd be open to returning to Palace. "There are a lot of games to play and I just have to see what happens. Right now I am at Chelsea and my focus is at Chelsea and learning at Chelsea. That is in the future and we will deal with that when it comes."
Loftus-Cheek has managed more minutes of playing time for England this season (72) than for Chelsea (33) but failed to grasp his opportunity in Tuesday’s friendly with Switzerland.
The powerful midfielder underwhelmed during his 61-minute performance and was eventually hauled off by Southgate after failing to impact proceedings.
