Gilmour on the road back to full fitness

Today,

went north to play against

. At first, City scored twice by

and

and they had a two-goal lead at half-time.

Chelsea needed to get things together and it was

who brought Chelsea back into the game. Then

scored the equalizer and Chelsea earned a draw.

In July, Gilmour had a knee injury and since then he has been struggling to get back to full fitness.

He tried to play 90 minutes for Scotland’s Under-21s against Croatia, but he was replaced just 10 minutes into the game.

On Wednesday, he played against Bristol Rovers in the EFL Trophy for an hour and today it was his first 90 minutes since his injury.

Chelsea boss Frank Lampard said before the game: “He is fit again. 

“He played on Wednesday night in the EFL Trophy, got good minutes and I’ve heard he played well so we are happy with him and he’ll play again at the weekend in the Under-23s.

“He’s getting minutes but he’s not match-fit. That will be a short period as he is a generally fit boy.”

It seems that Lampard has no problems with Gilmour and is willing to let him play for 90 minutes.

“He made great strides in a short time last year,” Lampard said. “I was very confident with putting Billy in for a big part of the season, from his training and then when the time came.  

“I possibly held him back slightly at times looking back. He put in some really good performances before his injury. 

“We must put some context on it that he is still a young player and we have good competition in the squad in that area but I have absolute faith in Billy that he is going to be a big player for us for a long time to come. I’m really excited to have him back fit.”