When a player like Wayne Rooney says that Joe Cole is even more skilful than him, you really wonder why Chelsea are playing such a hard ball game with him. Only a month remains now after which Joe Cole will officially become a free agent. There will be only one loser in this battle between club and player, and it is certainly not the player. Cole is an England international who at 28 years of age will have no trouble in finding clubs that are willing to pay him what he asks. What are the stumbling blocks then?
Does the club feel that he is not worth the £120,000 a week he is asking for? Or is Cole plainly greedy just like any other footballer?
I don’t think for one moment any Chelsea fan would say that Cole is greedy. But certainly he seems to be badly advised. Whether by his agent or some family member or even his close pals, Frank Lampard and John Terry is one for debate. On the other
hand it seems right that he is asking for such an enormous amount. He has seen Lampard, Terry and Ashley Cole all giving new contracts in excess of £100,000 a week and he feels that having spent a long time with the club, he is in a position to be awarded the same.
But Cole is an entirely different situation to the above mentioned three players. Cole has been at the club for 7 years now. In these seven years he has had to prove himself time and time again under 5 different managers. He has managed to successfully show them that he is worth the place in the team. But unfortunately, he has failed with Ancelotti. A fact stressed by the fact that he did not manage to start a game after the loss to Tottenham. Injuries certainly haven’t helped, but he doesn’t seem to be worth that amount at this moment in time.
Mourinho always stressed on having English players in the core of team. And during his time there were 6 players who were regular England internationals. Now the club has only 4 and with Cole possibly leaving it reduces the number to three. And with Lampard, 31, Terry, 29, and Ashley Cole, 29, all in the wrong side of the age spectrum, Chelsea could well end up without any English players within a few years.
With the World Cup only a few weeks away and with all the international away on international duty, there will be little time in which the club and the player can come to an comprise. And it seems there won’t be any and Cole looks like he has made his last appearance for the club in the FA Cup Final.
