洛夫圖斯奇克：右翼衛能發揮我的優點、希望足總盃能填補失望 - 切爾西足球俱樂部 Chelsea Football Club

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2022/04/17/
loftus-cheek-on-injured-pride-fuelling-our-form--his-wing-back-r

Loftus-Cheek on injured pride fuelling our form, his wing-back role and
the part Crystal Palace played in his career

17 Apr 2022


In the build-up to today's FA Cup semi-final, Ruben Loftus-Cheek sat down
with us at Cobham to discuss the way we bounced back from disappointment
with two brilliant performances and his own role in those victories from a
new position.


https://i.imgur.com/WjoriBO.jpg


One of the first players changed and ready to head out onto the pitch,
there are certainly plenty of topics for conversation with the 26-year-old
as he waits for his team-mates to join him, perched on a bench outside the
dressing room at our training ground.


We start with his own role in the Chelsea team, which has seen him used in
a new way by our head coach Thomas Tuchel to great effect over the last
week. He has fulfilled a number of positions for the German this season,
but it is as a wing-back that he has caught the eye with his last two
performances.


He seemed to take to the role instantly as he started last weekend's
Premier League fixture away at Southampton on our right side, playing a
part in four of our goals as we thumped the Saints 6-0. Loftus-Cheek then
reprised the same role in the Bernabeu against Real Madrid in the
Champions League, impressing again as won 3-2 on the night after extra
time, even if it wasn't enough to progress.


'It was a bit different between the two games, but still had similar
characteristics in the role that I was asked to do,' said Ruben. 'I'd
never started at right wing-back before, but it was a role I was confident
to play and carry out what was asked of me.


https://i.imgur.com/TNoAepg.jpg
Running at the Southampton defence


'I've always been comfortable wherever I am on the pitch, I just have to
bring my qualities to that position. In midfield you don't necessarily get
too much space to open up and drive with the ball and that's one of my big
strengths, so in this position sometimes it allowed me to open up and go
past people and use my running power. So I enjoyed it.


'Against Southampton, the gaffer gave me license to come inside, which is
natural for me, to come and get the ball, and I think that kind of caught
them off guard and pulled them about a bit. You don't normally see a
wing-back coming inside to a No8 or a No10 position to get the ball. They
changed formation quite early, but we were just too focused on playing
well and getting the win, and in the end it was ruthless.


https://i.imgur.com/o6fBxmK.jpg


'I was given license in Madrid, but it was up to me to see the game and
how it panned out and where I felt I could hurt them the most. Sometimes I
was standing on the touchline, sometimes I was coming inside, sometimes
nearly across to the other side of the pitch, like for Mason's goal. I
just tried to find space, create overloads, create confusion between Real
Madrid's players.


'It was more defensively that we had to stay in our structure, but even
then sometimes I had to come in midfield and sometimes I had to stay on
the touchline. So I kind of had a base position, but it was up to me to
read the play.'


Those consecutive victories over Southampton and Real Madrid were
impressive performances, both individually and as a team, in their own
right, but even more so when you consider they came off the back of two
home losses, to Brentford and in the first leg against the Spanish side.


Loftus-Cheek admits those defeats were painful for the players, but they
used that same pain as motivation to help them bounce back in such style,
with personal pride, determination to defend the club's honour and desire
to repay the Blues supporters all playing a part in our return to winning
ways, something he is hoping to carry into our FA Cup semi-final.


'It can go two ways when you lose like that. You can get stuck in it when
you're feeling the disappointment still and you go in a kind of downward
spiral because you've been beaten heavily and you're feeling rubbish and
it can go in a negative way. Or you can suck it up and say you don't
accept that, this not Chelsea.


'It's part of the club's mentality, but also it hurts personally to be
beaten. You take it to heart and it doesn't sit well with you. I think
it's natural for us to take that hurt and put it into the next game and
you saw that at Southampton and on Tuesday night.


https://i.imgur.com/PSODSkb.jpg
Preparing for today's match on the Cobham training pitch


'We do that for ourselves personally, but also for the team and for the
fans, because obviously the fans were hurt by it as well, just as much as
us. If you can harness that hurt and anger and put it on the pitch you can
be deadly.


'Obviously we had two heavy defeats, which is unheard of at Chelsea. The
Southampton game was a reaction to say we don't accept that as a team.
That was a show of real class and something for the fans. Now we've scored
nine goals in two games, so we need to take that attacking ruthlessness
into today's game.'


Unfortunately, the second of our two victories over the last week was
tinged with mixed feelings – pride at the brilliant performance we put in
to win 3-2 over 120 minutes on the night, but disappointment it wasn't
enough to send us into the Champions League semi-finals on aggregate.


As we've already established, though, this is a Chelsea team which knows
how to react to disappointment in the right way. After a few days to let
the initial sting recede, Loftus-Cheek feels the combination of
frustration at our exit and confidence from our performance could be the
perfect motivation for our FA Cup semi-final.


'There are very mixed emotions. We knew beforehand the task ahead of us
was monumental, it was never going to be easy at the Bernabeu, even if
we'd gone there at 0-0. But there was something within the squad that
meant we still had belief we could take them on and beat them.


'Obviously we did beat them on the night, but it wasn't enough. But I
think everyone is proud of what we did and how we performed. After it
blows over and the disappointment settles down you can reflect on it with
a neutral head. There's a lot of pride, but still you have that feeling of
what could have been, because it was so close. But that's football.


https://i.imgur.com/WPsmZcu.jpg
On the ball at the Bernabeu


'Now we've got an FA Cup semi-final to focus on and sometimes that's the
best way to deal with it. You've got another huge game to play that can
outweigh the disappointment and suddenly if you win that you're really
happy again.


'I think we can take confidence from the performance on Tuesday after
beating them in Madrid on the night and take that into the semi-final.
It's a similar kind of setting, in that it's a huge stadium, but this time
we'll have our fans in half of it. So we'll be ready for it for sure.'


The opponents at Wembley are a club Ruben knows well. He spent the 2017/18
season on loan with Crystal Palace and it was a year which had a big
impact on his career, helping him to continue his development at an
important stage while establishing himself in the Premier League.


'I'd say it was the year I matured the most as a footballer,' he
explained. 'That's when I made the step to feeling like a fully-fledged
Premier League footballer and I broke into the England team and went to
the World Cup off the back of that. So I really felt like that was my
breakthrough season and it gave me huge confidence.


https://i.imgur.com/b5oXsb7.jpg
Ruben made 25 appearances for Roy Hodgson's Crystal Palace side in 2017/18


'After being here working with the senior team from the age of 17 until
20, training with these fantastic players, I felt like I still needed
another experience, a next step, and Palace was definitely the right place
for me. It's where I learned to fight, which is important in football,
because it wasn't all sunshine, we weren't winning every week.'


With a number of players from his time at Selhurst Park still with the
Eagles, as well as knowing defenders Marc Guehi and Joachim Andersen from
their time together at Chelsea and Fulham respectively, there will be
plenty of familiar faces among the opposition ranks, even if he is looking
to burst their bubble at Wembley.


'I'm still friends with the people I played with there, so I'm happy for
Palace. It's fantastic to see what they're doing at the moment, they're in
really good form.


'I'm really good friends with both the centre-backs. I played with Marc
here in pre-season a lot. He's a fantastic player, which you can see, he's
starting every week at the back and I've seen him pop up with a few goals
as well from corners. Joa was one of our better players at Fulham last
season and they're creating a nice partnership at Palace, but we hope to
disrupt that today.'

--
當我漫遊在斯坦弗森林時，我看見了雀爾西，米爾斯的女兒，在傍晚初升的明月中，
在泰晤士河旁一處林地空間上翩然舞蹈。所有痛苦的記憶都離開了我，我像落入迷離
幻境中一般，因為雀爾西是伊露維塔兒女中最美的一位。她身上那襲藍色的衣裳宛如
萬里無雲的晴空，她灰色的眼睛像是傍晚群星閃爍的天空；她的斗篷上繡著金色的花
朵，她的頭髮漆黑如暮色中的陰影。她的榮光與美好，就像樹葉上的光芒，像是潺潺
流水，像是這迷離世界上方閃爍的繁星；她臉上有閃亮的光輝。

--