Tino Anjorin is set to join Huddersfield Town on loan from Chelsea for the remainder of the season, football.london understands.
Interest in the 20-year-old has increased throughout the month after it became clear he would not be returning to Lokomotiv Moscow, with whom he spent the first half of the campaign.
Southampton are understood to be keen on signing Anjorin permanently from Chelsea and considered launching a move for the midfielder this month.
However, with the end of the transfer window fast approaching, the decision has been taken for Anjorin to join the Terriers – where he will link up with fellow Chelsea loanee Levi Colwill – until the end of the season in order to help their push to finish in the Championship play-offs.
Southampton have not dropped their interest, however, and are expected to pursue a deal for Anjorin, who joined the Blues at just nine years old, in the summer.
Promoted into the Chelsea first-team squad a little over a year ago by Frank Lampard, Anjorin spent the second half of the 2020/21 campaign working under Thomas Tuchel.
He is understood to have enjoyed a good relationship with the German coach, who was impressed by the academy graduate's work in training and professionalism.
But given the number of attacking players in Tuchel's squad, Anjorin's game time was limited – he made just one appearance under Tuchel and that game against Barnsley in the FA Cup.
Anjorin was one of the first Chelsea players to return to pre-season training in the summer but suffered the misfortune of testing positive for Covid and that cost him the chance to impress in friendlies, something which Tuchel admitted was disappointing.
“When the season ended we agreed he stays for pre-season and he’d get the minutes he deserves," the Chelsea head coach said in August. "Unfortunately, before the first friendly, Tino was the guy to test positive for Covid and really suffered for ten-to-twelve days.
"You could see today that it was the first time he was back on the pitch and it was a lot for him to start with 30 minutes. So he was unlucky with the situation, he had no responsibility for it. So, honestly, I can’t really judge him and what I saw today in five, ten minutes was very promising again.
"He is strong, confident, creative, assists and scores a lot of goals in training for us. I just wished we had the possibility to see him against Peterborough, Bournemouth and Arsenal so he could really make a statement. Now the season more or less starts again. So he has suffered without having any responsibility for it."
With first-team minutes likely to be hard to come by, Anjorin departed Chelsea on loan for Lokomotiv Moscow in the summer having been convinced to make the move by Ralf Rangnick, then the club's head of sports and development.
The youngster made the perfect start with a goal on his Europa League debut to help Lokomotiv claim a point against Marseille and spent the following weeks building up his fitness.
However, just as Anjorin was ready for a sustained run in the side, he suffered a broken metatarsal in training in November and returned to Chelsea for treatment.
And while he was back in England, Rangnick departed the Russian club for Manchester United. And that was a key factor in both Anjorin and Lokomotiv deciding to end his time at the club, who did have a £17million option to make his deal permanent.
Anjorin is close to making a return to training from his metatarsal injury and will hope to help Huddersfield claim a place in the Championship top six – Carlos Corberan's side are currently seventh in the table after 29 matches.
