Sports 'It's a good test for us': Ruben Loftus-Cheek feels Chelsea will enjoy behind-closed-doors games

Ruben Loftus-Cheek believes Chelsea will not be heavily impacted by their Premier League games being held behind closed doors.

The Blues return to action following the coronavirus lockdown when they travel to Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon, with the England international midfielder looking to appear for the first time since picking up an Achilles injury at the start of the season.

And fan favourite Loftus-Cheek, 24, revealed that the west Londoners could actually benefit from the lack of supporters in terms of their on-field communication.

The midfielder told Chelsea's official website: 'I'm looking forward to it. Playing in front of an empty stadium will feel really, really weird, because we're used to loud noises and not even being able to hear the bench shout at you.

'Now we're going to hear everything and it's going to have that kind of hollow feeling, which is a good mental test for us.

'I'm definitely looking forward to playing football again, no matter the circumstances.

'I don't think it'll be a problem for us, because as soon as you start playing, everything else kind of zones out anyway.

'You're so focused on the game when you're playing that sometimes you don't even notice the crowd when they are there.

'I think this will be the same thing once it starts – you won't even notice because you'll be so focused on playing football.'

Loftus-Cheek also lifted the lid on the Blues' preparation over the past three months, with the club rocked early on in the lockdown period following Callum Hudson-Odoi's positive coronavirus test.

The Chelsea winger, who like Loftus-Cheek came through the club's academy, was one of the first Premier League players to contract the virus but quickly recovered.

It forced Chelsea's first-team squad to start training at home, and Loftus-Cheek is glad to be seeing his team-mates at the training ground again.

He added: 'You never think this kind of thing will happen, and we went into quarantine earlier than others because Callum had symptoms.'

'We didn't know it was going to stay like that for so long!

'Once everyone knew this was not going to be over in a week, the fitness guys at the club came up with a plan for us to follow to keep us ready, and keep us ticking over until we came back.

'We've done some Zoom sessions online with the whole squad, doing some strength work, which was fun. Just to keep the morale there and chat to everyone was good.

'We ended up doing those group sessions twice a week, and there was a lot of banter flying about, which was good – and we obviously got the work done!

'It was just good to talk to the boys and see them. We were all logged into a fitness app too, so we could see what everyone else was doing, running-wise, and that was good to keep the competition up and keep pushing each other.'

Chelsea prepared with for the return of the Premier League with friendlies against Championship sides Queen's Park Rangers and Reading, with Loftus-Cheek appearing in both games.