Blues admit Gerrard interest

Chelsea have admitted for the first time that they want Steven Gerrard if he leaves Liverpool.

Anfield chief executive Rick Parry conceded last week that England's midfielder was "not happy" and they were struggling to keep him at the club.

His Stamford Bridge counterpart Peter Kenyon, who watched Gerrard play a starring role in the Croatia game on Monday with new manager Jose Mourinho and owner Roman Abramovich, returned from Portugal to tell Chelsea TV: "Steven Gerrard is recognised as one of the best midfielders around and were it possible (to sign him) we would be extremely interested.

"It's great to see how Frank Lampard and Steven have played together and Steven certainly comes into the Lampard class."

Before Gerrard's unhappiness became public knowledge, Sir Alex Ferguson made it clear he would like him at Manchester United, He regards Gerrard as the natural successor to Roy Keane.

It is understood that Gerrard would reject any overtures from Manchester United because of the fierce rivalry between United and Liverpool.

Kenyon insisted talk of Chelsea breaking the £30million domestic transfer record to acquire the servicesof the Liverpool captain was "speculation" at present.

Reports claim the Stamford Bridge club are ready to double Gerrard's wages to an incredible £120,000-aweek to make him the highest paid of all their big-money signings and that a deal is all but agreed.

But Kenyon dismissed reports saying Chelsea are ready to pay a reported £50million to prize Wayne Rooney away from Everton.

Kenyon admitted he had been impressed, like everyone else, with Rooney's performances in Euro 2004 but played down talk of a bid for the England wonder boy.

"Wayne Rooney's been the talk of the tournament. He's been incredible, particularly coming off a fairly average season. But there's so much speculation, and if we started reacting to all the speculation we would literally do nothing else." Parry admitted last week that he faced an uphill task to keep Gerrard away from the lure of Roman Abramovich's millions.

"I spoke to him three weeks ago and we knew he was not happy with how things were going. He was down and said he didn't regard fourth (in the Premiership) as any sort of achievement. His concerns were fairly deep seated," said Parry.

Meanwhile, Chelsea are hopeful of completing the signing of Paulo Ferreira, 24, by the end of this week. They have agreed a £13.2m fee with Porto for the fullback but must wait until Euro 2004 ends to seal the deal.

Kenyon said: "We agreed terms with the club on Monday, clearly he's in the Portugal squad so we can't conclude the deal yet. We can finalise it as soon as Portugal are out of the tournament which, hopefully, is Friday."