Lamps off to Inter

Last updated : 20 May 2008 By Paul Lagan
Frank Lampard will sign for Inter Milan on July 1.
That's the conclusion from all the hype surrounding Chelsea's star midfielder.
With Jose Mourinho expected to be Inter's manager next season, sources in Italy and at Stamford Bridge are saying that the Champions League final tomorrow will be Lamps last match for the Blues.

Chelsea's Peter Kenyon is privately fuming at the leak and apparent suggestion that Roman Abramovich has shaken hands with Inter supermo Massimo Moratti at Milan over a cut-price £7m deal.

However Lamps's agent Steve Kunter, who brokered the movement of Paul Ince and Patrick Vieria to Inter had stated that Lamps will not be going in the summer.
He said: "I don't know why Inter Milan would think this. Nobody has talked to me and I am good friends with the owner, Massimo Moratti.

"I took Paul Ince there, I took Patrick Vieira there - if there was something on, I am sure I would know.

"The situation is that Frank has got a massive match on Wednesday, after which he needs to spend time with his family, because he has not had a real opportunity to do that since his mother died.

"He needs to get away and sort out his personal life and when he has done that we will sit down and talk about his future in football.

After that, we will talk to Chelsea and that is as far as we have got - there is nothing in the pipeline and I don't know why this has surfaced now."

Chelsea and Lampard have always said they will discuss a new contract at the end of the season.
But the Mourinho effect will have come into play if, as expected he takes charge in July with Roberto Mancini earmarked to replace Avran Grant in the Chelsea hotseat.
Mourinho will love nothing more than to take his former employer's star turn.