Neil Ashton's mole told him Chelsea will offer Frank Lampard a new deal

I used to just laugh off anything that the Daily Mail wrote as fiction unless it included some sort of actual quote as evidence, as they had earned a reputation for being one of the least reliable sources of information available. Neil Ashton had a run of good information earlier in the season though, and because of that I've been a bit more likely to consider what he writes.

Today he's got more information from his mole, and it's good news if you're a Chelsea fan. Ashton is claiming that the club will be offering Frank Lampard a new one-year deal to keep the Chelsea legend at Stamford Bridge a little longer. He doesn't have any sort of quotes, but his mole proved to be spot on several times earlier in the season with the Di Matteo and Benitez saga.

I've been convinced that an extension for Lampard was probably coming since news of the Ashley Cole extension broke. I've seen it pointed out by quite a few different people that Cole's extension appeared out of nowhere the day after he made his 20th league appearance, and it's not at all uncommon for club options such as those to be inserted into the deals of some of their older players (Jose Bosingwa several seasons ago comes to mind as well). While I didn't expect to hear this news for a few more games (Lampard is currently on 17), I was fully expecting that we'd see Lampard and the club come up with an extension out of nowhere in short order.

With that said, nothing has been signed or agreed to of yet. Ashton is simply telling us that the club is going to offer him a deal in the future, and my thoughts are nothing but speculation based on recent trends. Still, it has to be considered good news, as Lampard has shown he can still be useful despite nearing the end of his career. If nothing else, one more year would pretty much assure he becomes Chelsea's all time leading goal scorer.