Chelsea are looking to tie down Fikayo Tomori with the Blues defender set to be offered an improved five-year deal to stay at Stamford Bridge. Gazzetta dello Sport writer Nicola Schira claims Chelsea will offer the 21-year-old centre-back a contract running all the way to 2024.
Fellow Chelsea academy graduate Callum Hudson-Odoi signed a deal of the same length last week to finally end speculation he could walk away on a free transfer – or for training compensation – at the end of the current campaign.
Tomori looks set to follow suit, although there was no need to panic over his immediate future with the Blues already having him locked down until 2021. The England Under-21 star has impressed after being thrust into the first-team this season, starting in Chelsea’s last three Premier League games because of Antonio Rudiger’s injury problems.
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He scored his first Premier League goal in the Blues’ 5-2 demolition of Wolverhampton Wanderers earlier this month and arguably had his best game in a Chelsea shirt on Sunday, despite Lampard’s side going down 2-1 to table-toppers Liverpool.
Tomori made more tackles than any other player on the pitch, winning all four of his duels, completed 80 per cent of his passes and made two clearances – with nine-ball recoveries in total logged. He shut down Liverpool dangerman Mohamed Salah so effectively that the Egyptian lost possession 26 times and arguably had his least effective game for some time.
Tomori can expect to keep his place for the coming weeks as Chelsea deal with an injury crisis that has now seen them lose Andreas Christensen for a period of time. The Denmark international limped off in the 42nd minute to be replaced by Kurt Zouma, less than half an hour after left-back Emerson Palmieri had also gone off.
Lampard said: “Emerson is a similar injury to what he had, means you have come back too soon, and that is not a slight on him because everybody wants to play in this game. Christensen is a bang on the back of the knee which we will assess. First thought is it is not that bad.”
