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Loftus-Cheek has all the attributes to be a striker - Conte

Football Soccer - WAC RZ Pellets v Chelsea - Pre Season Friendly - Worthersee Stadion, Klagenfurt, Austria - 20/7/16 Chelsea manager Antonio Conte Action Images via Reuters / Heinz-Peter Bader Livepic

REUTERS - Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is toying with the idea of asking Ruben Loftus-Cheek to make the positional switch to a striker as the midfielder has all the attributes to succeed up front.

The 20-year-old player, who scored two goals in 17 appearances last campaign, impressed in Chelsea's pre-season win over Austrian side Wolfsberger as he created several chances for team mates and capped off the fine display with a headed goal.

"Every manager has their own idea about a system of play. In this system, with two midfielders, Ruben can play close to the other forward but become a forward when we have the ball," Conte told the club's website (www.chelseafc.com).

"He has the right characteristics to play in this position."

"Ruben is young with great potential. I like him a lot in the position of striker. He can improve a lot because he has great potential, good technique, good personality and he is good one v one."

Conte expected improvement also from 22-year-old Belgian forward Michy Batshuayi who joined from Olympique Marseille on a five-year contract.

"He has trained three days and today I wanted to see if after these three days he understood some tactical aspects.

"He can improve a lot, he can become a strong forward, he is very young but with great talent and I am happy with him."

Conte will begin his tenure in England with a London derby against West Ham United at Stamford Bridge on Aug. 15.

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

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