Scotland manager Steve Clarke is sure Chelsea’s Billy Gilmour will star for the national team in the future, but it’s the amount of game-time he gets at Chelsea that will decide when.
The 19-year-old Blues rising star must get regular first-team football at Stamford Bridge to earn a Scotland debut.
Young Gilmour broke into Frank Lampard’s Chelsea team just weeks before the COVID-19 outbreak forced an English lockdown.
However, the former Glasgow Rangers prodigy didn’t play any minutes of Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Aston Villa in their first game back after the pandemic.
Was it because the Stamford Bridge club were getting all their injured midfield players back again?
The Chelsea youngster had little chance of starting the Manchester City game, where anything but three points would give Liverpool a deserved title.
To remain in fourth place in the competitive Champions League position, Chelsea needed all three points in the 2-1 win against City. Chelsea highly favorued in their next fixture away to Sheffield Utd, at 1/2 which odds can be converted to 66% chance of picking up a must-needed win.
In fairness to Lampard, he didn’t want to discourage Gilmour by leaving him on the bench unused again, so he brought him on in the 87th minute.
Young Gilmour was again an unused substitute against lowly West Ham United in the 3-2 loss to the relegation battling London side.
Against Watford last week, Gilmour was the fourth used sub by Lampard when the injured Kante left the field on the 75th minute of the 2-0 win.
And again, on Tuesday night, the Scot was only introduced in the dying minutes of the 3-2 victory over Crystal Palace.
It’s becoming obvious that although he is thought very highly at Chelsea, Gilmour has too many midfielders ahead of him for a starting place.
One solution for Chelsea, Scotland and Glasgow Rangers would be sending the midfielder back to the Ibrox club on loan from July to January.
Gers manager Steven Gerrard would have to provide a certain amount of game-time for the Chelsea player, and that should be easier to achieve with Rangers.
The deal could have a stipulation that Chelsea take Gilmour back early if he doesn’t make the Rangers side, or if he’s needed back in London due to injuries.
