Frank Lampard has ruled a trio of his summer signings out of Chelsea's Premier League opener at Brighton.
The Blues will be back in top-flight action at the Amex Stadium on Monday evening, when it had been hoped that Lampard could give debuts to the new stars that the Londoners have snapped up this summer.
However, the Chelsea boss says that of the five big-name additions at Stamford Bridge, only the German pair of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz are in line for their competitive debuts.
The Chelsea boss ruled Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell and Hakim Ziyech out of the match, with Moroccan winger Ziyech suffering an injury against Brighton when the teams met in pre-season.
"Ziyech took an injury against Brighton and he won't be fit, we hope it will only be a couple of weeks," Lampard told his press conference on Monday.
"Chilwell won't be fit. He has improved this week. Silva is in London but not training until the weekend, so I doubt in contention."
Many are expecting that the new arrivals - all of whom were assigned squad numbers on Thursday - will elevate Chelsea to the status of title contenders, but Lampard was keen to play down that expectancy.
"The pressure on me to do better should be standard," he continued.
"I don't want to talk about statements.
"Last year we were very happy for Champions League places, we were very joined up in the business we wanted to do.
"The work starts now. It's been a bit of a broken pre-season, but you have to work hard very quickly.
"I'm not interested in what other people say about that [a title challenge].
"We finished a lot of points behind and we have to close the gap and build confidence. I am not making predictions."
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