Club icon Frank Lampard believes Chelsea’s rumoured pursuit of Andy Carroll and Peter Crouch could offer the Blues a stopgap for their current striking woes.

However, the former England international doesn’t believe his former side will look to get a deal for Carroll or Crouch in January, claiming that the veteran target men would only be a “short-term or Plan-B sort of signing”.

Chelsea are rumoured to be close to agreeing on a €50m deal for AS Roma duo Emerson Palmieri and Edin Džeko, with the latter understood to be the Blues’ target man of choice during this transfer window.

I think both of those players would be a short-term or Plan-B sort of signing,” Lampard told the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast show on talkSPORT. “I don’t think we’re looking at either of those players in the long-term.

“No disrespect to them, because they are very good at what they do, but I don’t think Chelsea are going to be going down that route.

“There is obviously an issue with scoring goals recently, so they’re in a position where they need to something, but I think January is not the time.

“Maybe they are just trying to get themselves through to the summer and they’ll look forward from there.”

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Chelsea have been looking to bring a new striker to the club as a result of the stumbling form of Álvaro Morata. 

The Spaniard has scored just one goal in his last six Premier League appearances and has been a shadow of the player we saw at the start of the season, with Antonio Conte looking to relieve some pressure off Morata’s shoulders in January.