Is Michael Essien the most underrated player in the Premier League? He certainly deserves more of the credit for Chelsea’s recent success, compared to Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and John Terry. The Ghanaian will hope that his being deployed as a right-back has come to an end, now that Bosingwa is on the scene, why else would he have signed a brand new deal at Stamford Bridge?

Sky Sports report that Blues fans will be relieved that speculated Interest from new Inter boss Jose Mourinho has come to nothing, and that one of their most important players will stay put.

“I will go back to Chelsea for the next season and expect to have a great season,” he said in the Sunday Mirror.

“We have shown as a club that we can handle disappointments, and I think we will be able to bounce back next season a better side.

“Most of the guys have gone on holidays and they will put the disappointment of the last season behind them.”

With Cristiano Ronaldo umming and aahing over a move to Real Madrid, Manchester United may no longer be a one-man band next season and they’d be considerably weaker as a result. Are Chelsea the favourites to win back the Premier League and perhaps even land the Champions League with their bottomless pot of cash?

There’s a pattern emerging here. Jose Mourinho leaves Chelsea, waits in the wilderness for a bit, then signs up for Inter. All of a sudden, speculation is rife that Lampard, Drogba, Essien, Cole, Terry and Cech (but not Sheva) could all be joining the arrogant loudmouth at his new club. Next thing, Mark Hughes is given permission to speak with Manchester City and, wait for it, the Daily Mirror put 2 + 2 together to come up with the below:

Once Hughes is installed as City boss, one of his first acts will be to try to persuade England midfielder Bentley and prolific goal-scorer Santa Cruz to move with him.

City tried to sign Santa Cruz last summer but were beaten to his capture by Blackburn, while £10m-rated Bentley has emerged as one of the country’s most impressive midfield talents.

Ten out of ten for predictability guys. Although it would be ironic if Hughes was to snare Bentley, especially as he has made recent utterances regarding the winger needing to honour his contract and be loyal to the club! If I were a Blackburn fan, I would be concerned by the news that Hughes is leaving and even more so if Rovers’ two best players jump off a potentially sinking ship.

According to multiple sources, Tottenham Hotspur are on the verge of bringing 20-year-old winger Diego Capel to White Hart Lane. They reportedly have agreed to meet the speedster’s buyout clause of 15 million euros. Electric sports reports:

Spurs are poised to confirm a deal to take the left-sided starlet to White Hart Lane having met the 15 million euros ($31.9 million) asking price, according to Diario de Sevilla.

Tottenham are believed to have agreed a four-year deal with the 20-year-old and he is keen to work with Spurs boss Juande Ramos once again after rising to prominence under him in Spain.

While many papers describe this as a done deal, there are still questions that need to be answered. Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido claims that he has had no talks with Spurs, though sources seem to indicate that this may be untrue. Also, there is talk that Capel is high on the wish-list of a certain Portuguese megalomaniac, who is set to be the new boss of the champions of Serie A. Spurs seem keen to get this deal done before Jose Mourinho’s deal with Inter is completed to make sure he does not foil their plans.

Capel would be the third in a line of talented new midfielders who are likely to be with the club next year. Croatian playmaker Luka Modric has already signed a contract with the London side. Many expect ex-Barcelona phenom Giovani Dos Santos to also join the club this summer. Regardless of what Martin Jol thinks about Spurs’ chance to break into the top four this year, Spurs fans should rest easy knowing that new boss Juande Ramos is moving the team in the right direction.

Capel, like Modric and Dos Santos, is seen as a rising, while unproven star. Like the other two, there has been much debate in the press about how big of an impact he will make. He has been called the new Cristiano Ronaldo, and he has been called the next Jose Antonio Reyes. I expect that he will fall somewhere in the middle. I think this would be a great signing for Spurs, as he is a pacy player with tons of upside. What do you think?

Former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has finally got himself a job and, as he eases himself into the Inter Milan hotseat, alarm bells should be sounding at Stamford Bridge. Word on the street is that the Special One is set to launch a raid on Chelsea, who exactly he’ll be signing depends what paper you read, but the Sun reckons that Michael Essien could be bidding adieu to playing right-back to mosey on over to Internazionale. And it doesn’t end there, The Sun says that Mourinho is to be given a “whopping” £100million to spend, and after he’s nabbed Essien he’ll try and grab loyal disciples Drogba and Essien too:

“Blues’ £24million midfielder Essien tops Mourinho’s hitlist before he turns his attention to two more Chelsea stars — Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard.

“The Premier League runners-up are expected to put up a fierce fight to keep their big names.

“But Mourinho wants Essien to be his midfield enforcer at the San Siro while the Ghana star would love to be reunited with his old boss.”

So if Jose does bid for all three, and all three want to leave, how easy will it be for Chelsea to keep hold of them?

Or does it not really matter whether a football club is prepared to bung a few extra quid in your pay packet when you’re positively rolling in it anyway? The Daily Mirror report that desperate times call for desperate measures and the Blues, fearful of a certain Portuguese football manager in charge of Internazionale, have offered Frank Lampard a whacking great salary to stay at Stamford Bridge. Will it be enough to keep a roof over the midfielder’s head?

Frank Lampard has been offered a new £130,000- a-week contract by Chelsea.

The Stamford Bridge club made the offer in a desperate bid to keep the England midfielder.

The new deal would put the 29-year-old’s pay on a par with John Terry’s, although the Chelsea captain has a longer contract.

Ultimately, while money talks in some instances, Lamps might have already made his mind up to leave London and join his old chum Mourinho in Italy. He’s been at Chelsea for a good few seasons and, after winning the Premier League a couple of times and featuring in a Champions League final, a change of scenery might be required at this stage of his career.

For all those Chelsea supporters that have been worrying about who would take over as the new manager at Stamford Bridge club: You can relax, because based on the word coming out of London, it appears that former Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini will be named the new Manager on Monday.

The Times the Times is reporting that several senior players at the club who were looking to discuss their current deals had been notified that they’ll be able to start contract negotiations at the beginning of the week when the Managerial position is cleared up.

Chelsea are expected to have their new manager lined up by Monday. Several senior players with uncertain contractual situations have been advised to wait until then, when the club’s managerial situation will be clearer.

Since the departure of Avram Grant from the West London club last week, a half-dozen names have emerged as candidates, including Roberto Mancini, who was ousted from his Inter Milan post on Thursday.

According to sources familiar with the situation, José Mourinho, the former Chelsea manager, has agreed a three-year deal with Inter, who had hoped to unveil him on Monday. (The Times)

So for those of you that had The Special One in your, “who will be the next manager at Chelsea” football pool, you can throw those betting tickets away, because it looks like Chelsea and Inter plan on swapping coaches.

So what’s your take Chelsea fans? Is Mancini the right man to lead the club forward? Or do you wish Roman would have waited until after Euro 2008 to discuss the opening further with Portugal manager Luiz Felipe Scolari?

The speculation surrounding the new Blues manager intensifies every day, none more so on Wednesday with the news that Roberto Mancini had been sacked by Inter. The Daily Telegraph report that back-to-back Serie A titles with the club were not enough for the Italian to keep his job, perhaps due to his inability to steer the team towards the business end of the competition.

“Mancini is thinking of making a statement in order to avoid any gossip. He is stunned and feels awful. When I spoke to him he was already depressed and he will feel worse tomorrow,” said Giorgio De Giorgis, his agent.

As expected, Jose Mourinho is likely to step into the breach at the San Siro, signing a £7million contract at the club. This means that Didier Drogba is extremely likely to follow his former manager to Milan, but what implications does it have for the Chelsea manager hotseat? It’s fair to say Mancini might need a while to get his head together after being axed seemingly out of the blue.

Moping hangdog Avram Grant is starting to feel very sorry for himself indeed, and to be fair he has every right to be a tad miffed. The Israeli went into the last game of the Premier League still in contention for the title, and got to within a whisker of winning the Champions League and League Cup. Brush aside the fact that Avram failed miserably to be a “big game” manager, and we have someone who did pretty blooming well in his first season in charge at Chelsea. Avram muttered:

“I tell you this: If Chelsea had played at the beginning of the season like they did at the end then they would definitely have been champions of England ahead of Man United.”

So does that make Avram better than Mourinho?

Whether or not you think the sacking of Avram Grant was right or wrong, nobody can be in any doubt that the former Chelsea was substantially compensated for his (un)timely departure. The Times report that the Israeli’s bumper pay-off by the moneybags club ensured he earned roughly £1million for every month that he managed the first-team. COS would like to put themselves forward to take charge of the team during June if that’s OK with the powers-that-be.

Grant’s £980,000-a-year contract as director of football was upgraded to £2.8 million last December after he had become first-team coach. Two days of negotiating with Peter Kenyon at Stamford Bridge on Friday and Saturday proved even more lucrative. Grant received a payoff of £5.2 million, which, although that is less than half of what José Mourinho was awarded, it still represents riches beyond the wildest imaginings of a man whose most high-profile job before joining Chelsea was managing Israel, where he earned £100,000.

Never mind the long face at the airport yesterday Avram, surely underneath you were struggling to contain your delight that you’d manage to land this life-changing haul which means you’ll never have to work again. No wonder Chelsea continue to make year-on-year losses when they’re throwing this sort of cash around, not that they seem to care too much about that.

Frank Rijkaard is the bookmakers favourite to become the next Blues boss, although there are plenty of lively contenders to replace Avram Grant. Whether or not the former Barca coach wants an immediate return to management is open to question, while it’s also questionable as to whether Roman Abramovich will want to appoint Roberto Mancini. While the Inter coach has done well domestically, he’s found Europe a much harder nut to crack, not something that is music to the ears of Peter Kenyon.

Another supposed front runner for the role is Guus Hiddink, despite the BBC reporting that the Russia coach would be likely to turn the role down if it was offered to him. However, with Abramovich apparently paying his wages to coach his national side, surely it wouldn’t be a shock to see him appointed?

Hiddink is yet to sign a new deal to stay on with Russia but BBC Radio 5 Live football correspondent Jonathan Legard said: “His agent says there is nothing suspicious about the unsigned contract.

“And his relationship with the Russian Football Federation is good, even if Hiddink himself expressed concern last week that the issue could become a distraction.

“By contrast, Hiddink’s fellow countryman Frank Rijkaard is readily available and may not object as much as (former boss) Jose Mourinho eventually did to Abramovich’s football involvement, which is reckoned to be as much as 30% of on-the-pitch activity by Richard Bevan of the League Managers’ Association.”

COS reckons the smart money could instead be on Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has allegedly been stalling on the vacant manager role at Benfica to see if Grant was going to be axed at Stamford Bridge. It’s hard to see him continuing much longer as Manchester City’s coach and all roads could lead back to London for the Swede.

Was it really their failure to win any silverware that saw the club ditch someone who didn’t even have a full season at the Stamford Bridge helm? Or is this just a convenient excuse to ditch someone regarded as a stop-gap by Roman Abramovich? Former Blues manager Glenn Hoddle has told BBC that the Israeli might have hung on to his post if Chelsea had landed the Premier League or the Champions League this season.

“Managing Chelsea at this time, three runners-up situations is just not good enough,” Hoddle told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“When you look at Roman Abramovich’s money that he has put into it, unfortunately that’s the pressure that anyone who goes in there is under.”

Never mind the fact that a bit of continuity is not such a bad thing. Look at Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign at Old Trafford, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and Rafael Benitez at Liverpool. Managers who have had several seasons to make a mark at their respective clubs. It had been thought that Jose Mourinho was going to stay at Chelsea forever and a day this time last season, despite missing out on the Premier League. Will the next Blues boss be under pressure this time next season?

You can always rely on Jose Mourinho to open his big mouth at the drop of a hat. He failed to steer Chelsea to a Champions League final during his three seasons at the club, something that clearly still rankles with the Portuguese fool. Why else would he jump on the anti-Avram Grant bandwagon as soon as his replacement has been cruelly axed by Abramovich, Buck and Kenyon. Reuters report that the self-styled ‘Special One’ had described Chelsea’s season as poor, despite the fact it was considerably better than his last one at Stamford Bridge.

“In my philosophy it was a very bad one because in football ‘almost’ means defeat and Chelsea almost won the Carling (League) Cup, almost won the Champions League and almost won the Premier League. Almost is nothing.

“After two titles per season for the last three years there were zero titles this season, which in my philosophy means a really bad season. Maybe in the philosophy of a loser this was a great season, which I respect,” he said in the interview published on Sunday.”

It would have been interesting to see if Jose Mourinho would fare any better against a Ronaldo-inspired Manchester United. It’s also clear that we only saw the best of Michael Ballack in a Chelsea shirt under Grant, and that everyone else performed well for the manager, with the exception of Drogba and Anelka. The bookmakers have cut their odds on JM returning to the Bridge but surely that’s a bridge too far?!

As we all know, it’s impossible to know what Roman Abramovich’s thoughts are regarding Chelsea FC and the future of manager Avram Grant. The Russian billionaire does not speak to the press on any issues surrounding his football club and doesn’t seem to give much away to his own staff either. The Guardian report that the manager’s future is hanging in the balance and all the Israeli can do is put his case forward as to why he should continue to lead this team next season. What do you think of his argument?

“I’m very proud of many things,” said Grant. “In the first press conference, I said I wanted to improve our game, to be interesting and in the final of the Champions League. I think everybody thought I was completely mad or crazy but we’ve done it. It’s good for a first year. Sir Alex Ferguson has only been in the [Champions League] final on two occasions so I have a future. People thought Chelsea were on the way down but the players have shown they can develop and play better football. I cannot talk about the future now. I’ve spoken with Peter [Kenyon, the chief executive] and others, and we’re just thinking about the game.”

Come now Avram, Chelsea featuring in the Champions League final has never been a remote possibility this season, even after drawing 1-1 with Rosenborg. He continues to persist with his bizarre notion that the team were crumbling when he replaced Mourinho, not that they just needed some fresh impetus. Even so, the Blues have come within a whisker of winning the Premier League and Champions League – does Grant deserve a full season at Stamford Bridge to strut his funky stuff?

Let’s face it, when Frank Lampard first signed for Chelsea, he was a bit rubbish. The midfielder was fond of the square pass rather than an incisive one and he managed just seven goals in all competitions during his first season. Fast forward to this season and he’s found his name on the scoresheet twenty-one times, despite being injured and also missing matches due to the death of his mother. It’s little wonder that, as the Daily Mail report, Inter are sniffing around the east-end boy done good.

Lampard’s agent Steve Kutner claimed:

“Nobody has talked to me and I am good friends with the [Inter] 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.”

It appears likely that Inter will be enlisting Jose Mourinho as their new manager, lending credence that the likes of Lamps and Drogba could follow their big-mouthed former manager to Italy. If Chelsea FC land the Champions League, it will mean that the midfielder will have won all there is to win as a Premier League player, do you think he’ll be on his way in the summer?

The official club website reports that the next Chelsea spending spree has started already. Rather than continue to get the very best out of the existing squad, it’s all about throwing money at the cause to ensure that the Blues wrest the Premier League title back from the hands of Manchester United.

It’s fair to say that Roman Abramovich is a popular figure at FC Porto, despite snaffling Jose Mourinho from them after the narcissistic manager had won the Champions League with the Portuguese champions. Since then, Chelsea have spent £19.85million bringing Ricardo Carvalho to the club and a further £13.2million on the reserve player that is Paolo Ferreira. Now it appears that the Russian is fumbling about with his loose change for another Jose.

“Chelsea can confirm it has reached agreement with FC Porto for the transfer of Jose Bosingwa. The player is now in England to discuss personal terms and undergo a medical.”

Are Chelsea the only club to build their team around a right-back? After all, spending £30million on this position in the past four seasons indicates it’s an area that they are very serious about! It originally appeared that Manchester United were going to sign the defender, thus securing a ready-made replacement for Gary Neville. However, Chelsea reign supreme in the spending stakes and will now seemingly offload Julian Belletti.

Porto are now busy preparing a shop window featuring many other members of their squad, in the hope that Chelsea will acquire them at super-inflated prices.

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