Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard, has insisted a deal is not close for Lyon striker, Moussa Dembele.

Reports earlier this week claimed the Blues had already agreed personal terms with the 23-year-old, despite having seen a £34million bid rejected by the Ligue 1 club.

Lampard is ready to sanction the sale of Olivier Giroud and is already eyeing possible replacements.

On Dembele, he told reporters:

“He is a player I know, and a player that the club know.

“But I’m surprised to see his name to pop up so regularly when it’s not popping up in my conversations so regularly, to be brutally honest.

“And there’s quite a few players in the last week I can say the same about. He’s a player I respect and I know he’s another team’s player.

“Of course, we’re looking to strengthen and I’ve spoken about strengthening in high areas, goalscorers because it’s where we’ve been found pretty short in home games recently particularly.

“The idea of people being clinical, they are hard to find, and I’ll only want to go that way if we know we are improving the squad we have already because at the moment we are working very hard on the training ground and in game to get that right ourselves.”