Drogba can be our Henry, says Lampard

FRANK LAMPARD believes Didier Drogba can do for Chelsea what Thierry Henry has done for Arsenal.

The 26-year-old Ivory Coast striker Drogba scored twice as Chelsea opened their Champions League campaign with an impressive 3-0 victory away to Paris Saint-Germain to move to the top of Group H.

It was his third goal since Jose Mourinho paid £24million to bring him from Marseille in the summer, making him Britain’s most expensive striker.

The Blues lacked a dominant goalscorer last season as previous signings Hernan Crespo and Adrian Mutu failed to live up to hype.

However, England midfielder Lampard believes Drogba can rival Thierry Henry at Arsenal, where he has won two titles and been voted double Footballer of the Year for the past two seasons.

Drogba scored 28 goals for Marseille last season and, after a slow start at Chelsea, looks to be finding his feet as he bids to fire the club to their first domestic title for 50 years.

Lampard is impressed and said after Tuesday’s game in Paris: “Didier’s got pace, power and great finishing ability and can get us 20 or 30 goals this season, like Thierry Henry does for Arsenal.

“He’s a different player to Thierry but can be that sort of figure. We’ve been lacking a player with real pace and power and now Didier’s doing it. It’s important for him to be scoring.

“He’s very strong, has good feet and is very willing to run for the team. It was only going to be a matter of time before he started scoring more goals.

“It’s nice to have a big figure up front that you can pick out straight away. If he can score the number of goals that Thierry did last season we won’t be far away from the title. We defend well and if we can continue to score goals we’ll do very well.”

Drogba yesterday collected the Marc-Vivien Foe award for being the best African player in French football, an accolade he achieved last season.

However, the shine was taken off his heroics on Tuesday night when there were suggestions that UEFA might look into the way he celebrated his goals, taunting the PSG fans who gave him abuse because of his connections with arch-rivals Marseille.

Lampard defended Drogba and said: “The fans were on his back as there’s a lot of rivalry between Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain. That can always get a player up for it and he showed exactly what he can do.

“It backfired on them and it always seems to happen. He reacted in the best possible way by scoring goals.

“If you’re a player and you’re getting that sort of stick from the warm-up and throughout the game you can be excused some exuberance when you score. It’s fair enough and there’s no harm done. If you score you’re entitled to enjoy the moment.”

Chelsea are in pole position after the other game in Group H on Tuesday night between Porto and CSKA Moscow ended in a goalless draw.