Chelsea coaching staff have played down the prospect of Marco van Ginkel featuring this season.
Van Ginkel still faces missing out on the World Cup despite recovering from a knee ligament injury.
Assistant manager Steve Holland said: "The injury he had was a nasty one, an injury that 15-20 years ago finished your career. These days, with the advancements made medically, that's not the case and you return almost as good as you were previously.
"He is well ahead of schedule, that's the way players think and it is a World Cup year. From our point of view it would be nice to take the pressure off and say, 'there is no rush, you've done fantastically well and are an important player for the future so let's go step by step'."
