You don't have to be a Chelsea hero of the past to appreciate a Chelsea hero of the present, but in the case of our Tuesday columnist, it helps.

Tomorrow sees the start of one of the most important and exciting periods in the club's history.

We have now reached the business end of the Champions League, the FA Cup final is more than a speck on the horizon, especially after the draw away to Barnsley, the Carling Cup final is only days away and the league title race will be going all the way to the wire with no room for any slip ups.

Arsenal's capitulation to United at the weekend could have a serious effect on their confidence even if they did send out a weakened side, so for me I still think Chelsea have a very good chance in all four major competitions.

The main reason is that we are back to full strength and from within that it is impossible to underestimate the importance of a returning Frank Lampard.

Frank has come back from a considerable lay-off and has taken an astonishingly short time to get back to his very best form. We all know that his goals against Huddersfield took him past that 100-goal mark, but even while celebrating it was hard to believe that a midfielder, who has to put in that much work over 90 minutes, could look so comfortable after only one game against Liverpool the week before.

Most players will tell you that it takes at least three or four games to be right after a lengthy lay-off, to be able to cruise through a game without struggling to breathe properly and crucially being able to make those lung bursting runs the length of the field to get in behind defences.

This is however Frank Lampard's stock-in-trade and once again he has shown he is peerless in this area. It also might be worth praising the fitness and conditioning staff as well at this point, but in the end it is the player who has to do the sweating and the gym work.

Throughout my career I considered myself a good goal scorer for a midfielder/winger. The stats at the end showed a ratio of roughly one goal in every five games, it compares well with most but it is a pathetic effort when viewed beside the incredible figures of our current number eight. For Chelsea he has averaged one goal every 3.5 games and he is doing even better than that this season.

Everyone who really knows the game has waxed lyrical about his goals and as such I thought I would be different and look for a few weaknesses in the man. First of all he seems a very decent bloke who is happily married and devoted to his children so no problems there. Even the recent injury doesn't really raise a question about his reliability; the run of games season after season without missing one was astonishing.

There are also few questions over his strength of character. Some England fans, and quite a few West Ham too, have given him a hard time over the years, but when he has reacted it has generally been with an understanding of their position and moreover an impressive dignity.

So where are these weaknesses? Well I have finally found two. He did an interview for yesterday's Times newspaper alongside that other great Chelsea man Ginaluca Vialli and I must say I was disappointed. That pink shirt in the picture was awful. Worse still, if you look closely at the plate lying in front of him, it was covered in chips!

The critics who question his weight will be having a field day, as it was very noticeable that Luca didn't have the merest hint of a greasy French fry anywhere near his plate.

On second thoughts, maybe Frank had finished eating and decided against the chips and the Italian had scoffed all his already. In the end I guess we will forgive Frank if he keeps bulging the net and not the far more impressive shirt he wears for our games each week.

Like all the other Blues fans I just hope we can tempt him in to staying at the club for a few more years, because at nearly 30 he is at the very peak of his powers. He said in the Times article that he didn't fancy going into management when his career finally ends, but he will come along and support Chelsea because that is what he really loves.

Even if he does leave to sample the delights of Spain or Italy for a year or two before the end of his career, I will never really have a bad word to say about this man. His place in the club's history is already assured and if he can just be standing on a plinth beside John Terry lifting the Champions League trophy before he goes, that would underline his iconic position and be the most fitting memory for a Chelsea great.

Last week I posed a very sneaky question indeed, which looked just too easy to be true?and it was. Who did Peter Crouch support as a boy? Well from a very large online entry, only 20 per cent got the right answer, that according to the player himself he was a QPR fan and not a fan of the Mighty Blues.

He was a ball boy at the Bridge, his father was a season ticket holder and he did think Kerry Dixon was great, but he claims to have followed the other local blue and whites.

One entrant and former competition winner, Carolyn Cheyney, suggested that: 'His Dad was a fervent Chelsea fan, but his mates were QPR fans and so he ended up going to watch both. I think he now post rationalises that he had more allegiance to QPR than to Chelsea, presumably because QPR are not in direct competition with his current team.'

It is an interesting point very well put but because the striker claims otherwise we have to stick to that. The winner who spotted all this and claims the Four-Ever Chelsea set of DVDs is Silvija Paulic from Slovenia.

This week to win a copy of the book - Chelsea - The Official History in Pictures - could you tell me how many goals Frank has scored in total during his top level career so far? Answers as ever to pat.nevin@chelseafc.com. And let's hope by this time next week we are a step nearer to the Champions League and holders of another piece of silverware.