Three-appearance Tariq Lamptey has three contract offers, plus one from Chelsea, too — report

Despite Chelsea’s emphasis on youth this season and extra careful attention to renewing contracts of said youth after the whole Callum Hudson-Odoi incident last year (and others before) we’ve once again found ourselves in a familiar situation.

Tariq Lamptey’s contract expires at the end of the season. And since it’s now January, that means the 19-year-old’s fair game for pre-contract offers from other teams. If he accepts any of those offers, we lose him for pretty much nothing a tiny compensation fee, but certainly not an amount in line with his talents and prospects. So pretty much nothing.

According to Goal, there are no fewer than three offers on Lamptey’s table already: from Lille OSC, Torino FC, and “an unnamed Premier League club”. Others are also monitoring the situation, including PSG, Nice, and Wolves.

Of course Chelsea are still very much in the running as well, but our talks have hit snags on “small details”, whatever those might be.

And so, we wait and hope for a positive outcome. Again.

Lamptey, the latest budding superstar who’s been with Chelsea since an early age (6, in this case), burst onto the scene with his match-changing debut against Arsenal last month, and has played well in his two other appearances since, both in the FA Cup. In fact, Lamptey’s three appearances have come in three of our last four wins in all competitions. Coincidence? Maybe.

But while he has Reece James in front of him, both in terms of development and in terms of the right back depth chart — and that might make him consider twice signing the Chelsea contract — and it would be a lot simpler if one of them were left-footed, there’s surely space at the club for both highly promising and talented Academy graduates.

Unfortunately, we can’t keep them all, but maybe we can in this case?