Lampard: Chelsea must get recruitment right to compete with Liverpool

Frank Lampard believes that getting Chelsea's recruitment right will be pivotal to closing the gap with Liverpool in the future.

Chelsea are targeting some big signings with Borussia Dortmund's Jadon Sancho leading their wishlist along with the likes of Bournemouth's Nathan Ake, RB Leipzig's Timo Wener and Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha.

FIFA had issued a two-window transfer ban on the Blues for wrongdoing in the signing of minors but a successful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport has seen it halved. That will allow Lampard's side to enter the market in January after missing out this summer.

Lampard admits his aim is to catch Liverpool, who are currently 20 points ahead of the Blues with a game in hand, and he thinks it might take clever transfer business to do so.

"That has to be the aim," Lampard said of eventually catching up to Liverpool. "The transfer ban was one thing. It gave the staff a chance to look at the players, see what we have got and look at the youth.

"That has been good and the more and more I see us play and the good and the bad, you change your feelings about how you want to go forward but the endgame will always be the same.

"Once we can start bringing players in and the young players start to hopefully mature and get better we want to bridge that gap to go up there. Whether we can do that next year, I don't know.

"That will depend on the work we do and whether it hits home but I will certainly not leave any stone unturned in how I try to work to get us there. But there are too many variables. We have to get recruitment right, that will be a huge deal.

"Not just who the individuals are that come in, but can they help influence the way we play and the way we want to play? I have got a clear idea of what that is, it didn't look like the first 30 minutes against Arsenal, but we've shown at times this year that we've got a chance."​

Lampard said that his side's recruitment will be a collaborative effort, with several individuals key to Chelsea's transfer business.

"We are joined up in terms that I have very close conversations with [Chelsea director] Marina [Granovskaia], very close conversations with Petr Cech and Scott [McLachlan] who is the head of our recruitment department," Lampard said.

"They know what I want and I will be fundamentally in the middle of who and what we bring into the club. As it stands, we are very open about that. If it feels right from my side on the footballing point in January, from the club side on the club point in January, then we will make the moves we make. It is a joint-up effort."

The Blues' first game of 2020 is away at Brighton on New Year's Day before the FA Cup third round begins with Nottingham Forest's visit to Stamford Bridge on Sunday.