New Derby boss Frank Lampard used his Chelsea connections this summer to secure the signings of Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori on loan from the Blues, as he attempts to take the club a step further than last season where they lost in the playoff semi finals to eventual winners Fulham.
Mount has stolen the headlines so far with two goals in his first four appearances, but it was Tomori who would have excited Chelsea fans with his performance against Ipswich on Tuesday evening.
The 20-year-old made five clearances and won a huge seven aerial duels as he kept a clean sheet whilst playing alongside the experienced Richard Keogh at centre-back. It wasn’t just his defensive abilities that came to the fore against Ipswich though, as the Chelsea loanee made 76 passes during the 90 minutes with an impressive 84% completion rate.
The 6ft 1in youngster has previously been loaned out to Brighton for the second half of the 2016/17 season and was at Hull in the Championship last year, where he made 26 appearances in all competitions for the first team.
The 20-year-old now has three appearances for Derby and looks to be the perfect partner for the slightly slower, but perhaps wiser Keogh. With Lampard at the helm he is sure to get the game time that his parent club will desire for his development and he will be hoping to take a similar route to Andreas Christensen, who broke into the starting line up at Chelsea last season after impressing on loan at Borussia Monchengladbach.
A deflected strike from Joe Ledley and a free-kick from Tom Lawrence, his second in two league games, ensured that Lampard’s side secured their first home win of the season at Pride Park against Ipswich, but it was Chelsea fans who would have been most excited by Tomori’s performance.
With all of his experience at such a young age it looks as though the Canadian-born England U21 international could be a big player at Stamford Bridge in the near future.
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