Soccer: Best of Crespo yet to come

LIVERPOOL fans be warned. Hernan Crespo has reassured Chelsea fans he has yet to produce his best as he tipped himself to score a flood of goals in the second half of the season.

The Argentina international is hoping to return in tonight's Premiership match at home to Liverpool after recovering from an illness which has ruled him out since December 20.

That was when he scored the winner at Fulham, taking his tally since his £16.8m summer move to eight goals in 16 games.

Crespo has averaged a goal every other game throughout his career for not only River Plate, Parma, Lazio and Inter Milan but also Argentina.

But he believes now he has put a groin injury behind him and settled into life in England he can really start to turn up the heat on Chelsea's opponents after a relatively slow start to his Premiership career.

"I'm happy with the level that I have at the moment and, given the injury problems I had at the start and the big changes I've had to make on a personal level, I'm doing okay but it can still get better," he said.

"I like to try and be a complete striker and I hope that's what I am. I'm always happy if I can set up one of my team-mates for a goal. But obviously scoring goals is what it's all about, and that's the most important part of the job.

"So far, I'm pretty happy. If that's the case after the early difficulties then now that everything is settling down and becoming more normal I can go on and score plenty more goals."

Crespo, 28, took time to find his fitness after arriving at Stamford Bridge.

"I found it pretty easy to settle into things. Seba Veron was here; the manager speaks Italian, and lots of other players speak Italian and Spanish too," he said.

"When I arrived here the English championship had already got going, whereas Serie A was still in pre-season. So it was only natural the rest of the squad was in a better condition than I was.

"The manager decided it would be best to give me three weeks' preparation before playing to get up to the same level as the rest of the players. We did all of that, and eventually I got my first start in the league games at Birmingham and then Arsenal.

"Straight after those matches, however, came a new problem I picked up a groin injury two days after the Arsenal match, and so I had to stop training for two weeks."

Crespo still experienced the highlight of scoring in a 4-0 victory against his former club Lazio in the Olympic Stadium.

"To go back and play against my former club was a slightly strange but special thing although it wasn't actually the first time I'd played against them since leaving," he recalled.

"I also played against them for Inter Milan and scored against them then too. But obviously for us to have gone to the Olympic Stadium in the Champions League and to have scored four goals was an enormous achievement."

Chelsea need Crespo to find his scoring touch again, because they have rather struggled to overwhelm opponents in the past month with only three wins in their past eight games.

Adrian Mutu has gone 12 matches without finding the net, his last goal having come against Everton on November 1.

Manager Claudio Ranieri insisted: "He is playing very well but he's a striker and he wants to score. I just said to him not to think about it too much, just to continue to play well."

Ranieri is, meanwhile, set to restore John Terry to his defence at the expense of Marcel Desailly or William Gallas while he is also hoping Carlo Cudicini will be back in goal.