Chelsea’s Nigerian-born stopper, Fikayo Tomori was left with a deep gut feeling of dissatisfaction on Saturday, as his side gave up a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 away to Sheffield United, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although got full 90 minutes of action with The Blues for the first time in his professional career, after twice playing as a substitute few months back, the dark-skinned central defender, who played on loan under Chelsea’s current coach, Frank Lampard, at Derby County last season, feels he could have done better to keep The Blades out.
Tomori, who also has Canadian citizenship but is an England youth international, previously made two appearances for Chelsea off the bench against Leicester City on the final day of the 2015-2016 season and in the UEFA Super Cup against Liverpool.
However, with Antonio Rüdiger yet to regain full fitness after injury, Lampard turned his focus on Tomori, despite the presence of Denmark international, Andreas Christensen, who was left on the bench.
Despite some frailties from his preferred lad, Lampard is keeping his trust in Tomori, who was named Derby’s best player of the past season, in which they lost out on promotion to the English Premier League behind Aston Vila on the last day of the campaign.
Although Tomori admitted he felt deflated after the game, and cut a sorry picture with his jersey held to his face, Lampard insists the youngster gave a good account of himself, especially in the first half, alongside Kurt Zouma in central defence against The Blades.
Having not been able to recruit new players in the summer transfer window due to Chelsea’s transfer ban, Lampard is relying on Tomori and other young talents in his team, but many observers were still surprised to see the Nigerian-born lad get the nod ahead of Christensen, who started each of the previous three Premier League matches and the UEFA Super Cup.
Lampard expatiated: ”Because I think Tomori played very well for me last year and training at a very high level. There is competition at centre-back, he deserved to play and I thought he played well. It was just a choice.”
