Chelsea manager Frank Lampard repeated his wish to bring in a new striker after Tammy Abraham limped off with an ankle injury against Arsenal.
Lampard had already made signing an attacker a priority before Abraham clattered into the advertising boards. He played on but had to be helped off the pitch at the end of the game.
“You can’t say we will definitely sign a striker but we are looking,” he said.
“If you don’t score enough goals then you won’t win enough games.”
Abraham was helped from the field at the end of a 2-2 draw against an Arsenal side who played with 10 men for over an hour and Chelsea do not know how long he will be missing.
“I hope he’s not (out for several weeks), but then if he is then yes, we do have the players to cope.
“But we can’t finish,” he said.
“We get into the box and we could have had three or four goals today. We are having shots, having crosses and lots of ‘ooh’ moments for the crowd.
“But we have to be clinical. Do we need to put the ball in the back of the net more? Yes. That’s clear. Our chance conversion is one of the worst in the league.”
| Chances in the Premier League | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Goals | Total shots (exc blocks) | Big chances missed* | Shot conversion rate | Top scorer |
| *As defined by statisticians Opta | |||||
| Manchester City | 65 | 332 | 51 | 19.6% | Aguero (16) |
| Liverpool | 52 | 257 | 39 | 20.2% | Mane, Salah (11) |
| Leicester | 48 | 250 | 35 | 19.2% | Vardy (17) |
| Chelsea | 41 | 275 | 45 | 14.9% | Abraham (13) |
| Manchester United | 36 | 250 | 32 | 14.4% | Rashford (14) |
| Tottenham | 36 | 208 | 20 | 17.3% | Kane (11) |
| Wolves | 34 | 195 | 28 | 17.4% | Jimenez (10) |
Chelsea have scored five more goals than Tottenham in the Premier League this season but have had nearly 70 more shots on goal – while only Manchester City have missed as many ‘big chances’ in the division.
Abraham’s 15 big chances missed is the joint highest in the league, along with Liverpool’s Sadio Mane, Sheff United’s David McGoldrick, Burnley’s Chris Wood and Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus.
Abraham will be checked over on Wednesday with Chelsea only confirming that he had ice on the injury after the game. He is the latest England striker to be injured after Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford.
“When gameday comes you have to have the killer instinct,” Lampard added.
“We’ve not got that at the moment. We can’t be nervous.”
