Chelsea given a Frank warning

Barcelona appear set to follow their £16million deal for Thierry Henry by lodging a bid of £15m for Lampard — an offer Chelsea can be expected to reject — while new Juventus manager Claudio Ranieri is also stalking his former player.

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"I don't need them," smirked Lampard, with a nod towards the language discs being held by Steve Kutner. "I'm already fluent."

The England midfielder, two years from the end of his contract, has rejected a new £110,000-a-week deal and no talks have taken place since he expressed his desire to stay at Chelsea after the FA Cup Final.

"It's something I am trying to keep my mind off," said Lampard. "When you've had a long season, the last thing you want is to go away for a month and wreck your wife and kids' holiday by stressing.

"My mind is on going back to preseason with Chelsea. I said after the Cup Final that I wanted to stay, but nothing has moved on. Chelsea have no necessity to come and offer me anything so I just get on with it.

"In an ideal world, I would sort it out before the start of the season. In an ideal world, I would have done it three weeks ago. But it's not an ideal world, is it?"

Lampard interrupted a holiday in Spain to return to Wembley yesterday and help the FA and Tesco launch a skills initiative aimed at five to 11-year-olds. But the Barcelona question hung heavily in the air after a Catalan radio station claimed a bid was being prepared.

Lampard is not the only Chelsea player in a contract dispute. Winger Arjen Robben, pursued by Real Madrid, and defender John Terry are also deep into negotiations but neither has signed.

Terry and Lampard are demanding parity with the club's top earners, Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko, on £130,000 a week.

Lampard's patience is being tested by Chelsea's reluctance to meet his demands and he knows Barcelona will pay the figure he thinks he is worth. But he insists he is not agitating to go.

He is planning another Premier League campaign and delivered a plea to the club's hierarchy to recapture the togetherness which characterised their title wins of 2005 and 2006.

A rift between Mourinho and Roman Abramovich marred last season and the power struggle continues, with the billionaire owner failing to finance deals for the players his manager wants to sign or keep, including Lampard and Terry.

Lampard said: "We have to remember what won us the title. It was about good quality football and a great team spirit and the club together as a whole.

"Roman Abramovich has brought so much into the club and moved it on a million miles. What Jose Mourinho has done in winning the titles and helping develop players like myself is brilliant.

"We need to remember all of those things and come back strong. We have the squad to go and win our League back, it's as simple as that."

Lampard expects Manchester United and Liverpool to improve and refuses to discount Arsenal's chances. He said: "Anyone is going to miss Thierry Henry. He is the best to have played in the Premiership, the most influential.

"It is a disappointment for Arsenal, but they will look forward. I don't buy into this thing that they are falling apart. They are too big for that, they have too good a manager and too many good players. They will adjust as good teams do."

The question of whether Chelsea will be adjusting to Lampard's departure will remain until he signs a new contract. After all, Henry's transfer was preceded by a string of denials from the player, insisting he did not want to quit Arsenal.