Ruben Loftus-Cheek took a significant step towards making a full recovery from an Achilles' injury after he played 60 minutes for Chelsea in behind-closed-doors friendly on Tuesday.
The England international has been out since May after he suffered a major setback during a friendly against New England Revolution a week prior to the Europa League final against Arsenal in Baku.
Loftus-Cheek has been forced to undergo a gruelling rehabilitation programme and take a watching brief while Frank Lampard builds a new-look Chelsea side around a clutch of the club's brightest academy graduates.
According the Guardian, the 24-year-old is said to have shown no ill effects following his pre-planned substitution on the hour mark against Brentford's B team.
Loftus-Cheek, who only returned to first team training at the end of January, will now focus on stepping up his workload at Chelsea's Cobham base before a possible appearance for the Under-23s.
The midfielder's long history of fitness issues means Chelsea will continue to handle him with extreme caution, rather than rush him back into the first team, despite a recent run of worrying form which has put their top four chances in jeopardy.
'Where we are having a bit of time off for the players, he won't, he'll be working,' Lampard said last week.
'He'll be with the 23s to try and get some minutes ... Hopefully after the break we can talk about him more when he is going to come back into the squad.'
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