Frank Lampard has confirmed to football.london that Chelsea defender Fikayo Tomori could leave the club on loan this month to get more game time.
The centre back has been frozen out by the manager and has played just 244 minutes across all competitions so far in 2020/21.
Ten of those minutes came as Chelsea cruised past Morecambe 4-0 in the FA Cup third round on Sunday afternoon when the defender replaced Kurt Zouma late on.
Having enjoyed a breakthrough 2019/20 season at Stamford Bridge, things have stalled for Tomori since the arrival of Thiago Silva on a free transfer with the Brazilian and Zouma becoming Lampard’s go-to centre back pairing.
Tomori came close to joining West Ham on loan in the summer transfer window but called off a move at the last-minute as he decided to stay in the west of the capital to fight for his place.
But he has been unable to get into Lampard’s plans and his future was all but confirmed when the manager left him on the bench for the FA Cup victory.
Lampard confirmed post-match when asked by football.london about Tomori’s future that he named the 23-year-old among the substitutes because he wanted to protect him to secure a loan move away.
“The situation with Fikayo is open at the moment,” Lampard said.
“There is a possibility he could be going on loan to get games somewhere else. So that would have to be the solution for him and the club. That was part of my thinking of not starting him today.
“I gave him some minutes at the end but while we were looking at that I wanted to make sure it was the right thing for the club and for him and individually. So that’s why he didn’t start.
“But his attitude, even though he hasn’t played much recently, has been fantastic in training and in how he is.”
Chelsea eased through to the fourth round of the FA Cup as Timo Werner and Kai Havertz both ended their respective goal droughts for the club.
After Mason Mount had fizzed the hosts into the lead, Werner tapped home Havertz’s header back across goal to score his first goal in 13 games.
His fellow German netted a late fourth to secure his first strike in 15 matches, sandwiched between the two goals was Callum Hudson-Odoi’s second goal in two games to make it 3-0.
