Chelsea are monitoring the situation of highly-rated academy graduate Jake Clarke-Salter at Birmingham City after receiving interest from rival Championship clubs in taking over his loan.

And Clarke-Salter faces a decisive six weeks after an injury to Birmingham central defender Marc Roberts opened the door for the 22 year-old to hold down a regular starting place.

Should Clarke-Salter establish himself in Pep Clotet’s team, then the likelihood is that he will see out the remainder of his season-long loan at St Andrew’s.

But if he continues to be rotated, then Chelsea are ready to recall Clarke-Salter with a number of other Championship clubs interested in taking the left-footed defender on loan until the end of the season.

Clarke-Salter was ahead of Andreas Christensen for a long period of his progression through the youth ranks, but has fallen behind the Dane and Fikayo Tomori in recent years.

But he is still highly rated both inside and outside of Stamford Bridge, and was named in last weekend’s Championship team of the week for his performance for Birmingham against Millwall, who he scored against.

But the Millwall game was only Clarke-Salter’s sixth Championship start for Birmingham and Chelsea had envisaged he would have played more games by this point.