Frank Lampard believes England have an embarrassment of riches up front with Dominic Calvert-Lewin's emergence at Everton meaning he is now competing with Harry Kane and Tammy Abraham in the national team.
The trio are currently front-runners to make Gareth Southgate's squad for Euro 2020, which will now take place in the summer of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Chelsea will try to stop the Premier League's top goalscorer Calvert-Lewin from finding the net on Saturday as they travel to Goodison Park to face Everton.
The 11-goal hitman is a threat for club and country, according to Lampard, but he is backing his own striker Abraham to come out on top.
"Yes, it is an exciting battle," Lampard told reporters via Zoom. "I profess my love for Tammy enough sitting here. He's my player.
"To speak about an opposition player is a bit different but what I do respect about Calvert-Lewin is that, and this is from afar because I don’t know him, but it feels like a career that he has really worked for. That sounds simple but it is not a straightforward pathway.
"Not everyone gets in their first team at 17 or 18 other than the Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen types of the world. Other players have to find different ways and now he has shown himself, last season and particularly this season, consistently he's an all-round striker. Every part of his game is a real threat.
"When I look at him as an opposition striker and he has quite rightly got into the England team and he has settled into that so he is a major threat for us at the weekend and for Everton going forward. That’s why he has scored so many goals, so fair play to him.
"It is a good challenge for England to have a few strikers competing and he has thrown himself into that question."
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Saturday's game will also see Lampard face his former manager Carlo Ancelotti, who coached him between 2009 and 2011 at Stamford Bridge.
Ancelotti got a career-best 27 goals in all competitions out of Lampard in the 2009-10 season, which the current Chelsea boss believes was a triumph of his former mentor's coaching ability.
“I remember that season very well out of my seasons because it was the season I did not start very well," Lampard continued. "Carlo came in and we played in a diamond formation and I played at the top of it, which on paper may have looked right but I was finding it very difficult.
"My game was very fluid and I wanted to get my chance to arrive in the box. I went quite a few games myself without getting a goal.
"I remember having a really honest conversation with Carlo and he was very open with how he dealt with it with me and I remember being really impressed, not just because it meant my position changed slightly and I managed to start playing better, but just how he handled that for me, with [what] was a tough period for me.
"From then on the season went from strength to strength, not just myself but for the whole team, so he got a tune out of the whole team. It was a difficult squad looking back, a very good squad - difficult is the wrong word - but we were strong and overloaded in certain areas.
"In this job, I understand you have to find balance in a squad and he found the perfect balance during that run-in and he should take a lot of credit for that. I think he had a very laid-back demeanour about him which I appreciated. But beneath that was a hard edge.
“That was very evident but I certainly enjoyed his general, laid-back demeanour. I didn’t crave too much conversation with my manager, I just wanted to do my job but with him I always felt comfortable when I had that one-on-one conversation. I’ve got specific moments in my time with him that I remember.
“One was the evening that he left the club and he actually came and had a couple of beers with us in The Plough over the road in Cobham. Another time when I was in America with Andrea Pirlo in Vancouver and we had dinner together in an Italian restaurant and it was a fantastic event.
"I have such high regard for him. He has the personal touch, he got it nailed, and I think the great thing with it is that he is very straight. He is very honest in everything he does and that is very refreshing.”
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