Lampard jokes about asking Chelsea to sign Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappe

Frank Lampard joked he would ask Chelsea to sign Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe.

The Premier League side are able to sign players in January after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) halved their transfer ban.

While Lampard wants to have a say in Chelsea's transfer activity, he joked about signing three of the world's best attackers – Barcelona's Messi, Juventus' Ronaldo and Paris Saint-Germain's Mbappe.

"If I say I want Mbappe, Ronaldo and Messi for my front three I might get knocked back," the Chelsea head coach said.

"I wouldn't say that, but it's obviously a balance where I can put forward a recommendation and have an open conversation with the owner and hope we move forward in the right direction. I'm very open about that.

"My biggest thing here is how hard can we work on the training ground because I know we have a good squad, that's my main concern.

"Of course when it comes to recruitment I want to have a big say in it and we are very open."

Chelsea were banned from signing players during the close season, but have still made a decent start to the campaign, sitting fourth in the Premier League.

Lampard believes the performances of some of the club's younger players could lead to a change at Chelsea, who host Bournemouth on Saturday.

"I just think we all here have seen this summer, and what's happened since the summer, that the idea of going into the academy and giving these boys a chance was a really good one, because they've deserved it. And they haven't been given that so much in the past," he said.

"So I do think maybe we've changed their [the club's] minds a bit on that one."