Frank Lampard thinks his squad lack a ruthless nature and says they don't have enough "killers" despite Chelsea's impressive 4-0 home win over Morecambe in the FA Cup.
The win was used as a confidence building exercise with Lampard selecting a strong XI against the League Two side.
Timo Werner ended a 13-game goal drought and Kai Havertz stopped a run of 15 matches without a strike. It came amid a poor run of form that has seen the club win just one of their last six league games.
Lampard went onto say that one problem is a lack of killer instinct that the world's best teams possess.
"What we can’t ask the youth of this squad sometimes is to be absolutely consistent and be killers, like other players in the league are in terms of the numbers they produce and consistently produce," Lampard said in his press conference at Stamford Bridge.
"That will come for our lads but at the moment their contributions are good.
"I mean killers in the best possible terms and I hope people know what I mean. We have a lot of young players with a lot of potential, who are coming through and of a young age.
"However the players at the top of the Premier League are scoring week on week and winning year on year, and at the ages of 27, 28, and are very established and they produce week on week, with big numbers. Players at that stage expect to be producing at those sorts of levels.
"So, for us, there's work to be done to get to the levels where hopefully we can jump to challenge those teams."
Only Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell and Edouard Mendy were rested among Chelsea's regular starters on Sunday afternoon.
Fikayo Tomori made his first appearance since September from the bench but his lack of minutes has meant that he has not been able to continue his development. Lampard admits that the England international could go on loan in the January transfer window.
“Situation with Fikayo is open at the moment. There is a possibility he could be going on loan to get games somewhere else," he added. "So that would have to be the solution for him and the club.
"That was part of my thinking of not starting him today. I gave him some minutes at the end but while we are looking at that I wanted to make sure it was the right thing for the club and for him and individually. So that’s why he didn’t start - but his attitude, even though he hasn’t played much recently, has been fantastic in training and in how he is.