SOCCER:DIDIER DROGBA expects to sign a one-year contract extension with Chelsea that would tie him to the club until 2013, and the veteran of seven seasons at Stamford Bridge is confident he can remain a regular in the first team despite Fernando Torres's arrival at the club.

The Ivory Coast forward, a €27m purchase from Marseille in 2004, has entered the final 12 months of his current deal but talks are under way to add a further year to his €136,000-a-week contract.

That wage had actually served to ward off his suitors this summer, Tottenham Hotspur and Marseille among them, but confirmation of an agreement is now expected before the start of the Premier League campaign.

Asked whether he wished to extend his deal at the club with whom he has won three league titles, Drogba said: “Of course, why not? We’ve started talking and it’s very interesting. Everybody knows what I feel about Chelsea and what I want. I will definitely be here next season.

“I said a few years ago that I will be here until the end of my contract, and I am here. Now I need to keep playing well here and giving my best, like I always try to do. This will be my eighth season at this club and it means a lot for any striker to stay that long at Chelsea.”

The €57m signing of Torres in January had suggested the London club were veering away from an overreliance on Drogba, whose campaign had previously been blunted by a bout of malaria.

Yet the Spaniard has, as yet, failed to impress in the team’s favoured 4-3-3 system – a shape also employed by the new manager, Andre Villas-Boas – and Drogba, a golden boot winner in 2009-10, appears more comfortable in the formation.

The Ivorian has yet to be paired in a match with Torres by Villas-Boas and, with the duo having failed to fire as a partnership under Carlo Ancelotti, Drogba appears to accept that the two forwards are competing for one role.

“Yes, I think we are (contending for one place),” he said. “That’s the manager’s choice, but it’s been like this for me for all my years at this club. It was the same when Eidur Gudjohnsen was here, when (Andriy) Shevchenko was here, and all of the other times.

“I’m 33, I’m the oldest player and, even if that feels strange, I’m not worried. If I deserve to play then I will play. If I’m not good then I won’t. It’s good for the team to have some competition. It will push the team forward and get the best out of us.

“For me, it’s not a problem to play with Fernando or without him. The most important thing is winning games together as a team. Our goal is to win the trophies we didn’t win last season. We need to do that for the club.”

Chelsea are maintaining their dialogue with Anderlecht in the hope of signing their 18-year-old Belgium forward Romelu Lukaku, a player very much in Drogba’s ilk.

Yet the youngster may well be loaned out to gain regular first-team football given that Drogba, Torres and Nicolas Anelka, who intends to see out the final year of his contract, are to remain at the club, with Daniel Sturridge and Salomon Kalou also competing for striking places.

Another Belgian youngster, the goalkeeper Thibault Courtois signed from Genk this week, underwent a medical at Atletico Madrid yesterday and will be loaned to the Spanish club for the season with the possibility of a second year to follow.

Chelsea are also close to securing the 19-year-old Barcelona B midfielder Oriol Romeu for around €5m. The player is in Colombia with the Spain Under-20 team.

Villas-Boas cancelled an open training session scheduled for the national stadium in Bangkok yesterday, conscious of his players’ exertions in their friendly against a Malaysia XI in the heat of Kuala Lumpur the day before. The event, for which a healthy crowd is anticipated, will now be held later today at the venue where Chelsea play Thailand tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Harry Redknapp has told Chelsea that a bid of €40m for Luka Modric would be rejected out of hand, as he maintained Tottenham Hotspur’s stance over the midfielder.

Chelsea have had bids of €25m and €30m rejected and when a figure of €40m was suggested, Redknapp said: “If we were looking to sell him, it wouldn’t meet my valuation. I think he is worth an awful lot more than that. Really, we’re not looking to sell Luka. We’re quite determined, if we can, to hang on to him.”