The door remains open for Frank Lampard to make a move to Internazionale after Jose Mourinho admitted the Italian champions are still searching for a midfielder.

Mourinho won two Premier League titles with Lampard while at Chelsea and has had a bid rejected by the London club, who say they will not enter into negotiations over a transfer.

Lampard is reportedly torn over whether he should move to Italy and Mourinho is willing to wait.

"The transfer window is open until August 31 and we need a midfielder. Lampard is at Chelsea, but I have worked really well with him," Mourinho said on Inter's first day back for pre-season training.

The Portuguese coach, who left Chelsea last September, took over at the Guiseppe Meazza in June after Roberto Mancini's sacking.

Mourinho also has his eye on compatriot Ricardo Quaresma but wants to trim down a bulging squad first.

"I like Quaresma, but he is at Porto. Anyway, the squad needs trimming. I want to work with 22 players at most, plus the goalkeepers," Mourinho said.

The coach had words of wisdom for Brazilian striker Adriano, who has returned to Inter after recovering his form and fitness on loan at Sao Paolo.

Adriano arrived at Inter's training ground saying he would give his all and score lots of goals.

"The words I've heard are positive," Mourinho said. "But tomorrow I want to see him really tired after the first training session."

The charismatic Mourinho, who said he was pleased city rivals Milan had bought Ronaldinho because it reflected well on Serie A, also warned his new troops as a whole.

"If I arrive at training an hour and half early I cannot accept it if someone arrives late," he growled.

"Fines are not important but if I say 10 then training starts at 10. If there are only 14 players, I'll coach the 14. The others can go home and stay there also on Sundays."

Reuters

With the weekend World Cup friendlies completed, even a hat-trick from Peter Crouch could not keep Chelsea from the top of the goal scoring charts


With Ballack (Germany), Lampard (England), Drogba 2(Ivory Coast) and Essien (Ghana) all scoring for their respective countries, Chelsea lead both the Premiership and Euro standing for goals scored in friendlies this weekend.

Other Chelsea players who played this weekend were Terry, Cole and Bridge (England), Carvahlo (Portugal, Robben (Holland) and Petr Cech (Czech Republic) who also kept a clean sheet. With France and Argentina not in action Gallas, Makalele and Crespo were not in action and Ferreira(Portugal) and Huth (Germany) spent their time on the bench. Shevchenko (Ukriane) is in action tomorrow.


According the the Chelsea website www.chelseafc.com, John Terry has stated that he will be fit for England's opener against Paraguay on Saturday. He came off half way through the 6-0 thrashing of the Reggae Boyz as a precaution after twisting his knee.


Didier Drogba has fired warning shots to his Chelsea teammate Hernan Crespo and in his usual frankness:

Crespo is scared of me and scared of playing us at the World Cup. Hernan told me before we came out to Germany that he is afraid of playing me and my country. He said Argentinians don't like playing African sides, as they have had bad experiences. They lost to Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup and Nigeria in the Olympics in 1996. I'm not worried if we beat them and it causes bad blood. I want to score the goals that put Argentina out of the tournament. This is not a time for club team-mates to worry about each other - and I certainly won't be, whoever I play against.

I can not wait for the World Cup to start and the Groups of Death - Group C and Group E - looking particulary tasty. Both Ivory Coast and Ghana are coming into the World Cup in good form in two very difficult groups there are going to be some cracking games and some unexpected results - its just impossible to predict these groups with any degree of certainty - and yet Argentina, Holland, Czech Republic and Italy, if they scrape out of their groups should go a long way - but they might not even get out of their groups with the two African nations, USA and the miserly Serbs to navigate past first.


Roll on June 9 - looking forward to a footballing feast from which we will all get withdrawal symptoms in a months time, and lets see if Chelsea can win the goalscoring table against the other giants of Europe.