Bosingwa And Kalou Will Leave; Chelsea To Offer Lampard New Deal

Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay held a press conference on Wednesday that was under media embargo for a little while. Now details are starting to leak out - you saw the Fernando Torres quotes from the Guardian earlier - and they're fairly interesting. Normally I wouldn't trust the Mail with unsourced comments, but I know exactly where these are coming from and they match the rumours I've been hearing as well, so here goes.

The big (and least expected) news is that Salomon Kalou and Jose Bosingwa will be allowed to leave the club now that they're out of contract. Both started against Bayern Munich, if only by accident, and both need to be replaced. Chelsea wanted an upgrade at left wing before; now they need one, and right back depth is also a priority.

Elsewhere, Gourlay apparently suggested that Frank Lampard will be offered a new long-term contract to stay at the Bridge. A big long-term contract that would include a pay rise. While I love Lampard and think he's had a wonderful end of season, the amount of money we're talking about would make this a pretty bad deal as far as I'm concerned.

The midfielder's previous contract counts for a grand total of £0 under UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules, and if we signed him to a new deal now at Torresian levels we're looking at incurring a £10M hit for every year of the deal. That is not a good plan. If Lampard wants to stay, we should be slashing his wages drastically rather than increasing them.

Also, Chelsea apparently want to re-sign both Florent Malouda and Michael Essien, which makes no sense whatsoever. Both appear to be pretty well broken at this point, and while I harbour some hope that Essien will bounce back eventually there's nothing I can think of that could justify a contract extension either. Why you would keep those two around but let Didier Drogba leave, I have no idea.

So... yeah. Not entirely sure what to make of all of this. No more Bosingwa, at least!