Lampard heads off on Chelsea tour but he's still torn over Inter move

13 April 2012

Frank Lampard looks certain to remain a Chelsea player — for another fortnight at least — after he did what four team-mates failed to do and boarded the plane for the club’s summer tour yesterday.

While Didier Drogba, Claudio Pizarro, Tal Ben Haim and Juliano Belletti were left behind, Lampard headed to China ahead of Wednesday’s meeting with Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, the opening match of a trip which will move on to Macau, Kuala Lumpur and finally Moscow for the Railways Cup.

Frank Lampard: Staying at Chelsea - for now

Frank Lampard: Staying at Chelsea - for now

Sources close to the England midfielder, who is demanding a new five-year £150,000-aweek deal, claim he remains torn between quitting this summer or signing a pre-contract agreement with Inter Milan in January and seeing out the final year of his Chelsea contract. Inter are set to up their latest £7.9million offer though Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso has emerged as an alternative.

But the decision to take Lampard on tour underlines Chelsea’s determination to hold him to the final year of his current £120,000-a-week deal should he not sign the four-year, £140,000-a-week contract on offer.

Chelsea insist Drogba’s absence from the trip is because of a knee injury but the striker’s future remains up in the air with Barcelona considering him as an alternative to Arsenal’s Emmanuel Adebayor and Tottenham’s Dimitar Berbatov.

According to his agent, Thierno Seydi, Drogba will decide whether to move on or sign a two-year Chelsea extension by the weekend.

AC Milan are keen on Drogba, too, and with Chelsea understood to be ready to smash the transfer fee world record to land Brazilian superstar Kaka, the cash-strapped Italian side would have the money to fund a move for the former Marseille striker to follow the capture of Ronaldinho from Barcelona.

Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani insisted yesterday that Chelsea’s latest approach had been rejected amid reports of an £80m bid.

Milan-bound? Drogba could be a Kaka makeweight

Milan-bound? Drogba could be a Kaka makeweight

‘It’s true that Chelsea made a conspicuous offer but I will not say how much it was,’ said Galliani.

‘It is equally true that we said no. Kaka is going nowhere. The fans can sleep easy.’

An alternative to Kaka is his Brazil team-mate, Real Madrid playmaker Robinho.

Chelsea are understood to have faxed an initial enquiry for Robinho, who is rated at around £35m. But Real will do business only in the unlikely event they persuade Manchester United to sell Cristiano Ronaldo.

If they fail once again to sign Ronaldo they have promised to offer Robinho an improved contract when he returns from Olympic duty with Brazil.

Almost certain to be on their way out of Stamford Bridge are Ben Haim, Pizarro and Belletti. Ben Haim should seal a £5m move to Manchester City this week if he can agree personal terms, with the defender anxious to maintain the £60,000-aweek salary he currently enjoys.

Belletti is a target for Benfica and Pizarro may join former team-mate Claude Makelele at Paris Saint-Germain.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in