Better to go now, Ruben

MY advice to Ruben Loftus-Cheek at Chelsea is go. Now.

He was impressive for Crystal Palace and England last season and went to the World Cup.

But now he can’t even get on Chelsea’s bench. I know the situation he is in. When I was at Crystal Palace, I was behind Ian Wright and Mark Bright. Wright went to Arsenal and they bought Marco Gabbiadini.

He was a prolific scorer, but it didn’t work at Palace. Yet I still couldn’t get a game. Then they bought central defender Chris Coleman and stuck him up front. I couldn’t get ahead of him either.

They signed Chris Armstrong from Wrexham and again I didn’t make the team. So it was obvious I wasn’t going to play for Palace as a central striker – the position I wanted.

So I went to Southend and within six months I had scored 18 goals in 30 games, moved to Nottingham Forest, got them promoted and finished third in the top flight the following season.

I scored 50 goals in 68 games and was one of the 11 players picked in Forest’s greatest-ever team, which mostly includes their European Cup winners.

That’s what Loftus-Cheek (above) needs to do. Chelsea have great training facilities, but he needs to go to an upwardly-mobile team and say, “I am going to be the man to take you on to the next level”.

By doing that, he will grow, learn and develop into the sort of player Chelsea would buy for £50million, £60m, £70m in a few years’ time.

That’s how ridiculous the situation is at clubs who only want off-the-peg players. He did everything last season to say, “Maurizio Sarri, give me a chance,” but no. At the moment he is at the bottom of the pile.

So get yourself out of Chelsea, Ruben. Go somewhere you can grow and learn. That will not happen listening to match reports while you are washing your car on a Saturday outside your palatial Cobham home.