Chelsea defender Fikayo Tomori has not played a Premier League game in 2020 and was not brought on against Manchester United on Monday night
For much of the beginning of the campaign, Frank Lampard would move around his Chelsea back-line to get the right combination. Kurt Zouma, Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger and Fikayo Tomori have all been used this season, with different pairings throughout the campaign.
However, in the past five Premier League matches, Lampard has gone for a defensive pairing of Christensen and Rudiger, which has left Zouma and Tomori on the sidelines.
The decision to bench Tomori has come as a strange one for many Chelsea supporters, with the England international having had an impressive start to the campaign.
“A lot of people would have seen him [Tomori] as number four, he’s now number one or two as it stands,” Lampard said back in September.
“I’ve picked them ahead of some senior player, it’s the choice of the manager and at the minute I’m going with them because they can show me they can play. They are really playing well. Age isn’t a huge factor, it’s not the huge factor in actual situation.”
However, things have changed over the course of the campaign and Tomori has not featured in a Premier League match in 2020. His past two appearances have come in the FA Cup, the second of which he scored against his former loan club Hull City.
“I think at a club like Chelsea, there’s competition for places everywhere,” Tomori said after that win. “You have to be on top of your game and then the manager has to make decisions.