We are discussing the exact terms of his departure with him and his representatives

We are discussing the exact terms of his departure with him and his representatives.”One sticking point may be the next job that Ranieri takes, with Chelsea checking through the fine detail of his contract, possibly to try and reduce the scale of the settlement. The 52-year-old Italian will fly into London today from Rome and tomorrow will collect the Variety Club’s Man of the Year at a lunch. He is determined to leave with his dignity intact and negotiations may start as early as today with other clubs who want to employ him.Ranieri has made it clear he wishes to stay in the Premiership and an obvious move would be to Tottenham Hotspur.Last night his agent Jon Smith said of Ranieri’s departure: “We read the tea leaves a few weeks ago or even a few months” in reference to the clear intent of Chelsea’s chief executive Peter Kenyon to bring in his own coach. Smith added: “He [Ranieri] is very proud of the job he has done but he is a little sad at not being able to complete the job.” He went on: “We are assured he is a man in demand.”Meanwhile despite a statement from Porto’s vice-president Fernando Gomes that no club had contacted them over Mourinho, who has two years left on his contract, Chelsea were in talks yesterday with the Portuguese champions and will pay compensation of around €1.5m (£1m). Porto held a board meeting and it is thought they intend to approach former Real Madrid coach Vicente Del Bosque.Mourinho, 41, who agreed a four-year deal worth €24m (£4.1m a year), five times his current salary and the highest in domestic football, will not arrive on his own. Naturally you don’t want players to duplicate each other, but then there is little danger of Butt duplicating either Scholes or Lampard, the players at most risk because of the need for an established bottom of the diamond.The problem is that we are in the iron grasp of received wisdom Butt is England’s number one “holding” player.

Holding player? He is in a fixed position before the kick-off, then has to respond to the ebb and flow of the game. The wisdom is that Butt has talents which make him indispensable in this position for England, though plainly not for an underperforming United.Another problem is that the holding role is as big a tactical myth as the diamond. This gives you control of the blackboard but not necessarily the field, especially when you are up against opponents of the quality of Henry, Zidane, Pires and Vieira, to mention just a few, and the ball is a moving entity rather than a blob of chalk.Swift, inspired movement makes a nonsense of any tactical drawing, and if it is right to have balance and solidity in your team, it is equally important to field your best players. You have four points of a diamond, of course, one at the top, one at the bottom, one on the right and one on the left. Gerrard, Lampard and Scholes all know how to tackle – and just happen to be infinitely superior to Butt when they have the ball, which will have to be quite a bit of the time if we are to have any chance at all of upsetting Zizou, Thierry and company in Lisbon in a couple of weeks’ time.What is a diamond? It is something you can draw on a blackboard and up there it makes great sense. Ask Arsenal, who so recently were blown away by Scholes’ devastating intervention in the FA Cup semi-final. Curiouser and curiouser, indeed.It’s true that Scholes has had a three-year scoring block for England, but his performance level has remained high and with him in the side there is always the potential for a clean, game-breaking eruption.

Jordan gave him five minutes’ playing time.Playing the advocatePerhaps Jose Mourinho was right after all to take the Chelsea money. Certainly it’s hard to imagine his admiration for the working style of Liverpool would have survived the astonishing admission by the Anfield chief executive, Rick Parry, that his players Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen will be consulted before the appointment of a new man. What next? Logically, they get to write their own contracts.. Yes, it’s happening again – Alice In Wonderland time It’s quite inevitable, of course England are heading for a major football tournament. First sign: David Beckham tells a part of the media he is still willing to address without duress that his season in the company of Zinedine Zidane has made him so much a better player, a claim, let it be noted, without the support of too much video evidence

Yes, it’s happening again – Alice In Wonderland time It’s quite inevitable, of course England are heading for a major football tournament. Evans’ physical renaissance has not been quite as striking as his friend’s. He was in excellent shape and told me that he is working on weights to build up some strength after losing a lot of weight.”This promising report was perhaps not entirely on the cards when Gascoigne arrived in Florence in the company of the broadcaster Chris Evans, one of the player’s “refuelling” partners when his England career imploded under Glenn Hoddle shortly before the 1998 World Cup.

Joe Jordan, who played for Milan and Verona after his cult-inspiring stints at Leeds and Manchester United, coached the British team and had encouraging words for any prospective employer of Gascoigne. “I can only say that the lad showed a tremendous attitude,” said Jordan.”Given the make-up of my team, I didn’t really see the point in imposing a curfew,” added Jordan, “but I can report that Gazza was the first to bed and well before midnight. He charmed a 40,000 crowd in Florence at the weekend with a beautiful performance, full of graceful thinking and brilliant technical control. Paul Gascoigne, who has just celebrated his 37th birthday, has had a belated Italian triumph. Despite securing second place in the Premiership, over-hauling Manchester United in Chelsea’s best finish for 49 years, and a place in the semi-finals of the Champions’ League, it was not enough.. He has all but secured the play-maker Deco for €20m (£14m) and the midfielder Costinho for between €8-10m (£5.5-£7m).