Jesse Derry joined Sporting CP on a season-long loan deal in the summer transfer window but the Chelsea winger has found minutes hard to come by in Portugal so far

In July, Chelsea tied Jesse Derry down to a new long-term contract at Stamford Bridge, keeping the winger at the club until 2032.

However, the plan for the 19-year-old talent was always to loan him out this season. In Sporting CP, the Portuguese club with a strong reputation of developing talent, Chelsea thought they found the perfect temporary home for the youngster.

Sporting, though, have not proved to be that for Derry so far. At the time of writing, Derry has one start to his name - coming in the Allianz Cup last week - this season. After completing 73 minutes against Maritimo, Derry was an unused substitute in the following two fixtures against Casa Pia AC and Shakhtar Donetsk.

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The latter of the two was played at Stamford Bridge. Shakhtar struck an agreement with Chelsea to allow them to use their west London home this season for home Champions League fixtures. The Ukrainian champions have not played at the Donbass Arena, their home ground, since 2014.

This season, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they chose London as their temporary home for European fixtures, despite the English capital being approximately 2000km from their Kyiv base.

It would have been a pretty surreal moment for Derry to return to Stamford Bridge on Tuesday evening and see some familiar faces, those working around the stadium, but the Cobham graduate spent the entire 90 minutes on the bench as his side picked up a crucial 1-0 victory over Shakhtar.

Sporting picked up the three points after parting ways with manager Rui Borges not long before. Paulo Fonseca has left Lyon and is expected to replace Borges at the Jose Alvalade Stadium in due course.

Derry will be hoping to leave a strong first impression on the highly-rated Fonseca in a bid to record more first-team minutes. Chelsea will also be hoping that's the case with the Blues keeping a close eye on how the teenage winger develops during his time in Portugal before he arrives back at Cobham in the summer.

After signing a new contract at Chelsea over the summer, Derry said: "It's a dream come true, obviously, to commit my future to such a big club like Chelsea.

"You don't even think about it, but when it comes it's the best feeling ever. Now I'm just so excited for what is to come.

"The club's got a massive project. Everyone wants to get back to winning stuff and I'd love to be part of that in the future.

"After having a little sniff of playing for the first team I couldn't have thought of anywhere else I'd rather be for my future. So it was a no-brainer."

Derry made three first-team appearances for the Blues last season. Liam Rosenior handed the teenage talent his senior debut in February, with Derry coming on for the final stages of the 4-0 FA Cup win away at Hull City, before being given another cameo in the victory over Wrexham in the next round of the competition.

The Chelsea winger was also given his Premier League debut by interim head coach Calum McFarlane in May but Derry was stretchered off after a collision. Derry was taken straight from Stamford Bridge to hospital with a head injury but fortunately, it was not too serious and he was named on the Chelsea bench a couple of weeks later.