Callum Hudson-Odoi has opened up about the bond he shared with Ruben Loftus-Cheek as the pair recovered from the same injury this summer.
Both players ruptured their Achilles' tendon, with Hudson-Odoi suffering his in April and Loftus-Cheek having the same fate in a post-season friendly against New England Revolution.
The 18-year-old has now returned to the first team after fully recovering from the injury, while Loftus-Cheek has almost recovered and will be hoping to be back in action in the coming weeks.
An Achilles' rupture is one of the most serious injuries a player can get, and could easily be a defining moment of a player's career.
However, Hudson-Odoi has made a decent return with three assists to his name already and a goal against Grimsby Town in the Carabao Cup.
And he is pleased to be back with the Blues and making an impact once again for the club.
"It gave me a better mind set to know that if I do work hard and be strong then I will come back to where I was before," Hudson-Odoi said.
"You have got to stay positive, whatever the situation is. The moment that you go negative is the moment that things will go bad for you and it will start falling apart.
"I didn’t want that sort of thing to happen to me after the sort of injury that I was having. My mentality always is to be positive and be happy, no matter what is going on. It is staying positive.
"I have got the people around me to keep me positive as well.
"Ruben, the first thing he said to me was ‘wow, that’s crazy, I don’t want to be getting that sort of injury’. I said, ‘trust me you don’t want to. The pain I am going through is hard’.
"He got it and throughout the rehab, when I have been in then he has been in, and we have just been going off each other," Hudson-Odoi added to the Chelsea website.
"Obviously I was further forward because I had the injury earlier, he was looking at what I was doing. How my strength was getting there. I was walking a bit better at the time, so it looked good.
"He wanted to get to that stage so we were just chatting and talking about it as much as possible. Seeing how things were going.
"He has been saying that he is feeling much better and I am full healed, so it is good."
