Ruben Loftus-Cheek admits he was frustrated by the suspension of football due to being close to a return to Chelsea first team action.
The 24-year-old has now not featured for the senior side in more than a year after he ruptured his Achilles' tendon while playing in a post-season friendly last May.
Before football was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, Loftus-Cheek had featured in three U23s matches, while had been an unused substitute for Frank Lampard.
The midfielder was on the verge of returning to full action for the Blues, before the Premier League campaign came to a halt in March.
"It was frustrating for sure. I’ve put a lot of hard work into getting fit and had just finished what was kind of like my pre-season," Loftus-Cheek told the Chelsea website.
"I was training with the group and then doing my own stuff afterwards with the fitness coaches, which was really hard trying to get fit to play as quickly as possible.
"I’d been doing that for weeks and weeks and started to feel like I was very close but then lockdown came. It was frustrating but that’s life - I’ve just had to carry on keeping fit by myself."
Chelsea's players returned to training on Tuesday after the Premier League gave the green light for the first steps of 'Project Restart'.
The players have been back at Cobham, but under new social distancing measures and working within groups of just five people.
All the players returned for the first day, however N'Golo Kante was granted compassionate leave by the club after voicing concerns over the return due to health worries.
Loftus-Cheek
“We’ve been involved in the conversations and our opinions have been noted,” he told the Chelsea website.
“What they’ve proposed to us with this first phase, everyone feels it’s safe to do and I think it’s very important to take it step by step with these things because of what’s going on in the world.
“You have to do things properly but we feel like this phase one has been done properly so everyone is looking forward to get going."
