Chelsea are bracing themselves for an official bid from Inter Milan for Frank Lampard next week after José Mourinho is appointed coach. The Portuguese has agreed a three-year contract worth £7million a year at the San Siro and is expected to be announced as the new coach tomorrow after Roberto Mancini, who was sacked on Tuesday night, has finalised details of his severance package.

Lampard is one of three players that Mourinho has told Massimo Moratti, the Inter president, he wants to sign this summer, with Deco, the Barcelona playmaker, and Ricardo Quaresma, the FC Porto winger, completing the shortlist. Mourinho will also move for Didier Drogba and Ricardo Carvalho, who played under him at Chelsea, if he is given additional funds by Moratti or raises them through player sales, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the striker, one who may leave Milan.

Chelsea are happy to sell Drogba and circulated his name to European clubs last week, but they will fight to retain Lampard. The England midfield player has a year remaining on his contract and could, under new Uefa rules, buy his way out for £6million, the value of his final year's wages.

Lampard has been talking to Chelsea about a new contract for more than two years with little progress, but the club will make a concerted effort to secure his future next week. The 29-year-old has been excused from travelling to Trinidad for England's friendly international on Sunday and Chelsea hope to take advantage by inviting him to Stamford Bridge for talks. Chelsea also want to keep Carvalho, but cannot offer him improved terms because he signed a new contract last season.

Mancini won three successive Italian championships but paid the price for a poor record in the Champions League, which Mourinho has been hired to win. After finalising the Italian's payoff, Mancini's representatives will turn their attention to Chelsea, following up a series of phone calls made to the club by a third party over the past few weeks.

Maurizio De Giorgis, his agent, yesterday followed the example of Didier Deschamps by linking Mancini with a move to Stamford Bridge, though neither man is thought to feature high on Chelsea's shortlist. The longer the club delay an appointment, the more likely it is that they are waiting to know the availability of a manager involved in the European Championship, such as Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink or Slaven Bilic.

“He had a meeting with the president and they decided not to continue with him,” De Giorgis said. “He is very disappointed, of course, he was not expecting that to happen, but in football things can happen quickly and unexpectedly and this is one of those occasions.

“As of now there is no contact with Chelsea. Roberto Mancini is not a person or coach who likes to propose himself to a club, he waits for a club to look after him so we are in that position right now. We're not proposing Mancini to any club.

“It's a natural consequence of what has happened. Chelsea are one of the top five clubs in the world so it is more likely, if there will be any talk, there is more chance of it to happen now than before. There are chances, but at the moment there has been no official contact with Chelsea or any other team.”

While Chelsea made little progress in their search for a manager yesterday, they also failed to resolve the future of Henk ten Cate, the assistant first-team coach. The Dutchman missed an appointment with Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, after returning late from a holiday, which will hardly help his cause because he is expected to be dismissed.