Branislav Ivanovic was impressed by Chelsea teammate Ruben Loftus-Cheek's performance in their draw with Liverpool.

And the Serb believes there's more of Loftus-Cheek's U21 teammates on the brink of breaking through.

"We have a great generation of young players," said Ivanovic.

"They improve during training with us and they can be competitive in the team," the Serb added. "They can make our squad bigger and in the future we can really think about them.

"It's not just Ruben. We have a minimum of five-six players who can be in our squad and it is great for the manager to give them a chance to play.

"They showed the can play in training and in the next couple of games they will get a chance. It's a great motivation for them. They're still young, they need to fight. This is the period, the next one or two years, where they need to prove they are really good."