Lampard: Our loan stars can decide do-or-die tie

FRANK LAMPARD has urged Derby’s loan stars to send a message to their parent clubs in a ‘do-or-die’ play-off semifinal at Elland Road tonight. Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori of Chelsea and Liverpool’s Harry Wilson have been key men this season but Derby face a 1-0 deficit against Leeds. ‘We have some younger players who might go back to their parent clubs, but what a chance for them in their careers to lay down a marker and to feel a game like this,’ Lampard said. ‘If they are going to be as successful as they want to be, there will be more of this, and bigger and better games potentially if they go to the higher end of the Premier League or European football.’ Lampard said the butterflies he felt as a player have returned as a manager. ‘I felt them ramping up against Leeds,’ said the former Chelsea midfielder. ‘These games become critical, a game mid-season may not be. These games are do-or-die. That brings the jeopardy in. They separate the men from the boys.’ This is Derby’s fourth play-off tilt in six years — the previous three ended in failure. ‘The last thing you want to do is come away saying, “We could have done something”. We have to leave everything on the pitch,’ said Lampard.