Liverpool has today confirmed the signature of former West Ham United and Chelsea midfielder Joe Cole on a four year contract. The player, who scored 28 goals in 183 Premier League games for Chelsea, will earn around £90,000 per week at Anfield after joining on a free transfer. But did Sir Alex Ferguson miss out on a player he once admired?
Cole has rarely fulfilled the promise of youth, with Ferguson once courting the 14-year-old West Ham protegé on a weekly basis but refusing to make a bid for the midfielder this summer. Moreover, the midfielder has failed to hold down a regular place in either the Chelsea or England teams in recent seasons, with injury restricting Cole to just 11 full 90 minutes over the past two and a half seasons.
However, with Ferguson’s Manchester United side lacking creativity in the middle of the park some supporters saw Cole as exactly the kind of ‘value for money’ signature the club is now seeking.
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In Short, yes. The coming season will let us know more as if he is the dynamo of Liverpool then we made a mistake.
Yes United did miss out on him, but I guess his wage demands were too much for us, this was the main reason even moneybags Chelsea didn’t keep him.
I thought he would go to Arsenal or City over Liverpool though – maybe they weren’t interested either.
He will probably play on the left at Liverpool, with Kuyt out on the right, Gerrard behind Torres.
For us he may have played behind Rooney, Nani and Valencia out wide.
I think we have missed out.
Possibly. It depends if he goes through another season injury ravaged.
If we sign Balotelli which is constantly being touted, it would have been great to have an midfielder too for nothing.
I still think we need an attacking mid like Sneijder, Ozil or even Cole so if he stays injury free, yeah we really missed out.
No.
Cole had a big warning that his career might not last much longer after his injury. It’s the main reason. Chelsea let him leave. Let the scum pay him 90k for 4 years. Another fragile player for them.
Only if he has an injury free season, then with hindsight possibly.
Yup I have to say I think we missed out big time.
Liverpool rivalry aside we could say they paid too much for him, we could say he is injury prone but if we are to be honest if they can keep him fit he is probably going to work out as the bargain of the summer.
And he also adds to their homegrown quota.
I wonder why we werent seemingly interested?
Unless Cleverley is the new Scholes and Anderson comes back to play as we know he can, we have certainly missed out. Above all other positions we need strengthening in the centre of midfield. We need a tackler and a creator. Would Cole be the best we could get for the creative role? Certainly not, but unless we sign somebody in this position, or the “Youth” can really surprise us, we will go backwards this year. There may be no “value” in the market, but where is the value in not investing to enable the team to win?
Cole? We should be in a position to do better than him but we are in a position where we could do a lot worse.
No.
Why should we accept an injured Chelsea reject.
If he is not good enough for Chelsea then he certainly isn’t good enough for United.
He had at least 2 chances to join United and rejected us both times, now that he has been cast off by Chelsea he was interested in playing for us!!
No thanks.
besides, owen Hargreaves has Michael Owen for company in the treatment room we dont need another 90k ornament in there!
Sir Alex and the whole of United NEVER wanted the average vass over-rated player that is joe cole, he would of been the most useless and less talented lad on our books and aint worth the money he thinks he is. Why would we ever want a geezer who struggled get into a flipping chelsea side, cleverley is 10yrs younger and twice the player joe ever was and will be a big player given time.
Would have liked to have him sign but it sounds like he’s getting a bit big for his boots. Therefore let him go. He’s not a man of the future anyway. I’d prefer Nani and Valencia on the wings.
As David says Utd certainly don’t need another player with a terrible history of injury. 90k is far too much for him as well. I never thought he would go to Arsenal as they simply wouldn’t pay those wages to a player with a dodgy injury record.
It’s no secret United have got severely limited funds and any money spent needs to be spent very frugally. Joe Cole simply does not fit the bill. Too high risk
http://www.sportingo.com have an article saying real madrid have cooled interest in vidic, and are looking at tiago, carvalho and b.alves as options.
I wouldn’t put that much store in Sportingo. Vidic certainly wants to leave.
Ed, i know its late but you cant fault me for seeing an article and thinking to myself how great that is, anyways i have all the confident in the world cleverley-rafa-fab-gibbo-jonny-corry-cathcart-gill-kiko-welbeck-diouf-javier-obertan-eikrem-w.keane-king-smalling-nani-ando-wazza-possebon-delaet-james will play major roles in our club remaining the dominance force for yrs to come in the epl and europe, also there a fresh claim we might go after playmaker stevan jovetic (21 this nov) of fiorentina.
Lets hope the kids do it. I doubt the Jovetic rumour to be honest.
overrated, always injured. Mercenary. Now explain how we have missed out on paying a crock £100,000 a week please?
Had to laugh at this comment from Cole from the Mirror, if he doesnt think
that its a stepdown from Chelsea to the Scouse then he has major problems.
blackpool and bolton were bigger thAn liverpool once……FACT
LOL. The scouse bastards are welcome to their brand new Harry Kewell.
that’s a decent comparison, liverpool are much bigger than chelsea though
history for sure.
But Chelsea is the 2nd biggest team of the 2000’s after Man Utd.
Nah, Justin. Liverpool & United are the biggest British clubs by far
Their glory & history is ingrained in popular culture
Even if Chelsea win a couple of European Cups, they will be a long way off
Sid with Liverpools problems , they could be out of the top 4 for a few more years.
History is for historians , new fans are gained by performing now.
Look at Leeds and Forest.
Livrpool will get into the top 4 this season. I think Roy Hodgson knows what he’s doing.
They’ve been shit for 20 years and still manage to be a bigger club than Arsenal, Chelsea and the other southern shite pretender cunts
A lot of young kids grow up supporting Liverpool because it’s part of their family history