The 25-year-old spent almost the entirety of last season on the sidelines with a serious injury but returned to action at the end of the campaign and started in our opening day victory over Brighton on Monday night.

He played just behind central striker Timo Werner against the Seagulls and our head coach has said Ruben could feature there again, despite the competition for places in the squad.

‘Ruben obviously has been out for a long time and even his return to play was pretty broken by the lockdown and the restart when he was just available to play a few games,’ said Lampard.

‘So we certainly have to give him a bit of time on those fronts.

‘It’s a position [No.10] that Ruben can play for us. We’ve got injuries with [Hakim] Ziyech out and [Christian] Pulisic out as well,’ said Lampard, on deploying Loftus-Cheek in a more advanced role.

‘They are players that will come back and give me lots of options, so it was interesting for me to see Ruben in that number 10 position, he can certainly give us lots in those areas.'