For a man of Frank Lampard's FA Cup scoring pedigree, this season's cup run has so far yielded a modest return. On Sunday comes a chance to do something about that.

The Chelsea vice-captain is just nine goals short of moving clear as Chelsea's all-time topscorer in the FA Cup. His 17 strikes put him fourth behind Peter Osgood on 19, Roy Bentley on 21 and Bobby Tambling who netted 25 times in the competition.

Just one of Lampard's17 has been scored this season, but it was an inch-perfect strike into the top corner from outside the box against Watford. It is right up there among his FA Cup best, that include naturally the winner in last season's Final.

'Normally I have managed to score a few in the earlier rounds,' he agrees, 'but I would rather score them in the later rounds when they can be really important.

'The FA Cup has been really good for me. I have scored in semi-finals and of course the Final, and I have had a hat-trick against Macclesfield and a few twos.

'I have always enjoyed the FA Cup games. I grew up on FA Cup football so there is always a little edge to it, for us English boys particularly. Scoring goals, especially important ones, is special. And the Cup Final goal is very special to me.'

The 2009 victory meant Lampard matched his father's collection of two FA Cup winners' medals and now Stoke City are the next hurdle in the way of a third lifting of the Cup and a rare successful defence of the trophy.

Lampard makes it clear that the team's recent performance level needs improving upon for Chelsea to be confident of progressing into the semi-finals. The players can take heart however from the fact that although they are going into this game on the back of consecutive defeats, no team in 2010 has stopped us scoring. In fact the goals continue to go in at a rate that means we are on course to yield the most goals in a season in the club's history.

'It doesn't especially feel like we have been scoring a lot because we are not playing well at the moment,' admits Lampard, 'but we have had a few very good victories and at home particularly we have scored a lot of goals.

'I would like to think we can keep scoring at this rate and set a new record.'

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