Chelsea striker Michy Batshuayi looks set to remain at Stamford Bridge beyond the end of the January transfer window. The Belgian joined the Blues in 2016, but he has been sent out on loan three times in the last two seasons to Borussia Dortmund, Valencia and Crystal Palace.
The 26 year old Belgium striker, who is contracted to the Blues until June 2021, has struggled to earn consistent playing time under coach Frank Lampard so far this season.
Despite making 12 league appearances for the South London side, Batshuayi has failed to start a single game and hasn’t played more than 20 minutes in a single league game. The Belgian has been linked to Roma, Crystal Palace and other Premier League clubs, considering his seven goals and three assists in 20 appearances.
The Belgian has appeared somewhat of an afterthought as Lampard searches for a new striker to reduce the goalscoring burden on Tammy Abraham, who is currently sidelined with an ankle injury.
However, Batshuayi netted in Saturday’s win at Hull and appears to have his manager’s trust as Abraham’s lead replacement with Olivier Giroud who was said to have slight groin injury and potentially poised to depart.
Lampard said: “He gets his goal. I am pleased as a goal scorer and a striker, he wants to score goals and it helps his confidence.
“I am pleased. I have said all season that we can’t just rely on Tammy. Tammy has been scoring regularly. He has given us a lot. Of course, we want Michy firing and scoring goals like he did today and when he trains he needs to stay at that level because today we needed him.”
“I don’t want to get into Michy’s game. It is not time to do that. I said yesterday, he trains as I want him to train and that’s not easy when you are not playing as much as you want to do but you have to go the extra mile to show that you deserve to play.
When you get them opportunities then you have to, wherever they are, show it. Today, I am happy with Michy. I am happy. Not because of just his goal. His goal was slightly fortunate but I like that.
That’s how goal scorers should score those kind of goals but I just want him to keep delivering when he is training and when the opportunities come. We are at that level of football which is quite demanding and everyone judges strikers on goals and I think Michy has that in him. So I want to see a bit more.”
