What Is Ashley Cole’s Problem With Arsenal?
Update: Wenger has said that he wants Ashley Cole to stay.
I’m hoping that one of you guys can help answer this for me.
For my part, I’m totally stumped. My knowledge of the “tapping-up” incident between Chelsea and Arsenal is limited, and from what I know nothing was done from Arsenal’s side to deserve such remarks.
The Sun quotes a blurb from Ashley Cole’s upcoming book:
“Arsenal hung me out to dry, using me as a scapegoat to get back at Chelsea.”
“The board ‘rewarded’ me with an insult and threw years of loyalty back in my face.”
“I’ll reveal the shattering truth about who fed me to the sharks. It changed my view forever on the club I regarded as family.?
A couple of things in that don’t make sense. For starters, Both Chelsea and Ashley Cole went against EPL rules when they met without telling Arsenal. Arsenal were within their rights to take legal action against Chelsea, which they did.
Now moving beyond the illegality of that meeting, what do we have?
- Ashley Cole wants to jump ship from Arsenal to Chelsea because he will get paid more and he will have a better chance of winning titles with Roman’s money and Mourinho’s coaching.
- Arsenal were pissed at Cole for what they saw as disloyal conduct. Because of this, while they maintained that Cole would not be sold and would remain an integral part of the Arsenal squad, they refused to help him with his subsequent dealings with the FA.
- The incident resulted in a lot of bad press for Chelsea and Ashley Cole, with Arsenal trying to distance themselves from the mess.
Honestly, I can’t see what Arsenal did wrong here. Ashley Cole fucked up bigtime, and whether he’s being brainwashed by his agent or if he genuinely feels let down by Arsenal, it’s clear that he isnt happy at Arsenal.
Without getting into a “A. Cole is a fkn cunt” mode, can someone please:
1) fill me in on the exact details of the incident in case I got something wrong or missed out on something, and
2) tell me why Cole is saying all this (if you guys have a better idea than I do)?
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Discussion - 29 Responses
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Spot on the money comment. While Ashley has been mouthing off about getting the short end of the stick, he has not exactly provided even a single argument or shred of evidence of this being the case.
Regardless of what transpired during this case, one thing is crystal clear: HE MUST GO ASAP!!
No Arsenal fan will tolerate behavious this outrageous, even from the star players.
Hope he lands a place on the Chelsea bench or gets the Woodgate and Owen treatment in Madrid. Just get out…
With football optimism (except for the former number 3)
Gus J.
think the problem started when Arsenal defaulted on a previous verbal agreement to raise Ashley wages to 60 000 per week, offeringly 55 000 instead. Offended, Ashley went to hear out Chelski’s offer.
The ironic thing is, the new “contract” Ashley eventually signed is between 70 000 to 80 000 a week.
Which maverick genius decided it was worth offending ur key player by defaulting on 5 K a week, after which, tried to appease afore-mentioned key player by upping 10-15K than what was agreed?
This was what dont make sense to me at all ! it is penny pinching one step too far.
***
but by now, i dont care whose right or wrong anymore. With his latest outburst, Ashley has burned all bridges for me. I just hope he take the roubles and leave.
We will have the last laugh when chelski end up aka Juventus.
Sorry mate cant help you as l just asked the same questions on another site. as i see it he broke some rules, he got caught, he got punished just what did he expect from the board after being caught in illegal contract talks with another club while under contract to Arsenal?
Hi, thank you for having the sense to analyse the real facts of the Chelski / Cole matter. The facts are as you stated above:-
1) Who showed a lowlife disloyalty to the manager & club that took him from London poverty to Millionaire status, and all before he 21……AFC, thats who.
2) Who actually broke every known transfer negotiation rule ’set up to protect clubs & players from dirty clubs & their agents from backstreet dealing, Chelsea with Kenyon & Mourihno and Ashley Cole….Thats who.
3) Who threw their toys out the pram because they were caught, and like any spoilt child blamed their parents…Ashley Cole + Agent+ Chelsea Management…Thats who.
4) Who, has become a celeb in the Beckham mould and wants to be in the headlines more & more…Ashley Cole thats who.
5) Who were found guilty by an independent tribunal of top brass, of all charges…Ashley Cole + Chelsea..thats who.
6) Who have acted totally correctly and has been found to be the innocent & offended parties in all this…Arsene Wenger & Arsenal….thats who.
7) Finally…who should be punished much more than he was because he has allowed the airheads around his private life to influence him during his spoilt brat strop….ASHLEY COLE THATS WHO.
What should Happen now. Well first, Arsenal should ask Cole for an Immediate apology for his actions during the Hotel meeting, and the for his child like outbursts in the Press, and then, give him one chance to sign a new contract for 4 years. If any of these is refused he should be offcially fined by the club and listed as available for transer to any club except the top three in England.
I believe also that although Flamini is not in the same class as Cole for his position, but he proved to be a much better team defender during that wonderful period of injuries, and he will not sit on the side bitching like girl.
It all started after the 2002 world cup. After some good performances for England, dein put to the board that cole should get an improved contract. now some contracts are done very quickly and some are protracted. So we made an offer to cunt, doubling his salary. However, trouble seemed to stem from his agent wanting extra payment for negotiation of the contract for the player. Naturally we refused to pay this sum, which amounted to roughly 5 grand a week for the duration of the contract. So four days before we played manchester united, in the season where we lost the unbeaten run to their cheating and riley’s incompetence and cowardice, it was revealed HE ARRANGED TO MEET CHELSEA. It was the grudge match we had been looking forward to all season and our preparation was naturally disrupted, with us losing 4-2. People seem to think it was chelsea who tapped up cole, but it was the other way round. he or his agent called chelsea met them and discussed a possible transfer. So we took action, and it was justified by the outcome: huge fines and a suspended 3 point deduction for chelsea. Cunt, being a cunt refused to blame himself, acquiring sports lawyer after sports lawyer and refusing to let it lie. he appealed, again and again, even to the court of arbitration in lausanne. What an utter cunt. We sold silvinho who was the most exciting left back in world football at the time, keeping carlos on the bench, to vigo and gave cole a starting spot. he was made to look good by the skill of pires and henry and the fact that we were predominatly a left sided team. when he pulled on the england jersey he often looked average. only after a great euro 2004 was he recognised as a great full back. Mourinho and Cunt deserve each other. If we get the reported 16 million for him it would be a great piece of business. Who pays 16 mil for a left back? You dont need a great left back to win anything. that position can be bluffed. anyway clichy who was better than cole at the same age, and flamini are players worthy of the red jersey.
I cannot believe that cole is painting himself as the victim. Of course it doesnt help he’s contracted to the sun.
so is henry, which i will never understand.
Arsenal have brought this on themselves by paying a wage well below the going rate - essentially they were taking the piss out of Cole because he was loyal and he came through as a kidd. They kept putting off the increase to save money.
And guess what? Arsenal are headed down the same route with Kolo - last two years this man must be in the top 3/4/5/ defenders in the world. He is a loyal and nice man who Arsenal are taking advantage of - Campbell has been geting 4 or 5 times the money of Kolo. What’s going to happen? Sooner or later Kolo will wake up and realise he is being pissed on by Arsenal and he cannot play forever so he better get a lot more money before time marches on. Wenger admitted monthes ago that Kolo’s contract needed changing - do you think that has happened? No its put off again and where has he been the last few weeks - yep mixing with players who will be saying - Arsenal are pissing on you Kolo.
By the way Cole can go because like Zidane whatever way you look at it the player has made a grave mistake. Mind you, I am not so confident now with Cole going because it looks like Clichy has a definite problem with injuries.
I have been a fan of Ashley Cole since he was given his chance by Arsene Wenger despite Arsenal at the time having Silvinho(Great player). I was inclined to forgive Ashley Cole for going behind Arsenal’s back because Arsenal is alleged to have renaged on a promise of £60.000 wages. HOWEVER I doubt if he is worth our forgiveness for this outrage he is about to air in his book. Granted he may feel agrieved about what happened but he needs to ask himself who broke the rules by meeting with Arsenal’s rivals in a hotel!! Ironically Ashley being caught resulted in Ashley getting what he wanted - MORE MONEY THAN WHAT HE EXPECTED. It appears to me that he may be a bit short up there. Why else would he write a book that criticises a club he is still with. The club that gave him the lifestyle which has resulted in him getting married to a ‘pop star’ today. If he wants to leave grant him his wishes and sell him to the highest bidder. Arsenal will always be there. Remember all those players who left Arsenal thinking the grass was greener on the other side? If he had any sense he would apologise to Arsenal and ts fans and shut up and get on with the job that all Arsenal fans pay him with their hard earned cash to do. I wish Arsenal would sell this ungrateful player. He has lost all the respect that most Arsenal fans had for him.
I think Steve is right that it all kicked off when Cole’s agent wanted Arsenal to pay 5 Grand a week to him on top of Cole’s salary. I cannot fault Arsenal for rejecting that. Arsene Wenger has always been very strong on the point that players should be paid appropriately in line with their experience and reputation, so I do not believe that he would have sanctioned any plan to short-change Cole.
We keep hearing people say that Cole is the best left-back in the world but I think that is mostly just a cliche. Just watching him in the World Cup, I remember so many crosses coming in from opponents on our left flank. And how often does Arsenal or England actually score from Cole’s attacking forays? One of the Barcelona players commented after the Champions’ League final that they had targetted Cole as the weak link in Arsenal’s defence and I believe Inter Milan had said the same, when they beat us 3-0 at Highbury, a couple of years ago.
He is a decent player but I really doubt that we would miss him as much he might think we will. I think we already have options in that position and there are players out there like Babel, who we could probably get, if we needed to. Cole and Tweedy are now big mates with the Beckhams, so I hope if he does go, he goes out to Madrid.
The myth that cole is desperately trying to create is that Dein/Arsenal “reneged” on a promise of 60k per week.
Dein and cole’s accounts as published in the media actually concur on the following:
1.Dein decided cashley should be better paid.
2.They met in a restuarant where cashley requested 60k per week.
3.Dein agreed that he thought that was reasonable, and said he would take it to the board.
4.The board made an offer of 55k per week.
cole is obviously a seriously stupid individual if he struggles to understand that Dein promisng to take the request to the board is not Dein promising him 60k per week.
The dumb little tw@t then ran off to chelsea to tap them up. Some loyalty!
If he had managed to come to terms with the fact that he was way out of line, he needn’t have even apologised, he could have just dropped his “case” and knuckled down to work his way back into the fans’ hearts.
Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate his lack of intellect and maturity, and as such should train on his own (I don’t want the reserves or youth beig infected by his stupidity) until some fool of a club comes in for his services.
This is about Chelsea’s greed and money, and being so desperately jealous of Arsenal’s success in 2002 (when this all started), that they would do anything (and still would ) to become London’s top club. Cole is the best left back around and can’t be allowed to go to a chief competitor either here or in Europe. Basically, going to Chelsea weakens us and strengthens them further - can’t be allowed to happen. I think that Arsenal should resist the temptation to sell him if possible-Chelsea will apply these tactics to all Arsenal’s young stars in future if they succeed. The only club he should be sold to is Juventus-in a player exchange deal.
We’re talking serious filth here. The kind of scum that gets hunted down. The kind of maggot that won’t be allowed to wear an England shirt eventually. Because nobody likes a traitor. Traitors get hanged. Traitors end up with a red hot poker up their arse. Divorce the twat. Before it’s too late. Shitty little man.
correct me if I’m wrong, but would this be like, say . . Becks running off to Liverpool to ask for more money? Is it really *that* big a deal?
he is a traitor,the biggest fool, an idiot, he doesn’t deserve to strip on the arsenal jersey ever again. he should be sold to a club inmalta at a ridiculously cheap amount. all hail flamini, clichy and hoyte. biggest hail to wenger and dein.
Lots of misinformation being aired in this thread.
Dein did verbally agree terms with Cole. When the written contract was presented to Cole it was £5k a week less than what had been agreed. Cole felt as if his loyalty (has been with the club since he was 12) was being taken for granted (as seems to be the case with the majority of clubs when it comes to home grown players).
After this his agent arranged to meet with Chelsea to see what they might be prepared to offer.
He signed the contract extension (1yr i believe) only after a fixed buy out clause was written into it basically allowing him to talk to any club that offered a certain figure £16 mil seems to be rumoured.
He could easily have refused to do this which would have meant that he would now be going into this season with only 1 yr on his deal enabling him to talk to clubs from january and move under the bosman ruling in the summer. So even though it might not be the wish of the club to sell him at least they will get a fee for a player that cost nothing that might have left for nothing.
In my opinion what he did was wrong but i wonder if it was worth dissafecting a key player who had previously been very settled at the club over such a relatively small sum of money.
Why don’t you link to the publicly published conclusions of the Premier League Inquiry? It would be helluvalot quicker.
http://www.premierleague.com/public/downloads/publications/Cole_Inq_Decision_of_Commission3.6.05.pdf
From the information presented in this article and from what I know. All I can say is arsenal have done nothing wrong. Ashley Cole should not have been at the meeting.
Although I wonder if Arsenal talked to Ashley Cole and listen to his version of the story/
I feel there is something here which we we don’t know!!
I think I forgot to mention that Ashley Cole has not actually backed his argument that arsenal hung him out to dry with anything.
I mean what does he mean by they left him to dry :S
“The board ‘rewarded’ me with an insult and threw years of loyalty back in my face.”
Dude you think 55 a week is an insult? you ask them for 60 a week they give you 55. They have come pretty close to what you asked for. You could have kept on negotiating but instead you feel it is an insult and go to chelsea to see what they will offer you. And your saying that arsenal left you out to dry. If anything you messed with arsenal. You have to remember no one is bigger then the club they play for. Not even shevchenko. You know why? Because without the club there is no player!!
If anything arsenal are the reason he is what he is.
Arsenal could have played on with Silvinho but they gave ashley a chance. And Silvinho in my opinion is much much better then cAshley.
btw I hate arsenal with a vengeance but I still feel that cAshley did them wrong.
UNITEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDD
I am not an Arsenal fan or a Chelsea fan but I would just like to say Cole has no integrity. With his comments he is looking for publicity for his book whilst trying to engineer a move away from Ashburton Grove (almost said Highbury, refuse to say Emirates). Arsenal fans should do the decent thing and boycott his book because lets face it no one else is going to buy it. There may of course be an Ashley Cole fan club based on the Isle of Traitor but I have a feeling this guy isn’t popular around the country. Good thing is Chelsea always buy players at way over value so sell him for £20+ and be that much richer as well as a traitor lighter.
A Cole is no longer a footballer who is looking to make his name by footballing deeds. He wants to become a celebrity like his mate D Beckham. He thinks the whole world wants to know about how he and his missus are going to live the wonderful life. He has missed out on all the good things that he could have learnt by being an Arsenal player and wants to emulate his English Chelsea Mates by being famous ( but not really that good ) footballer. Look at all the so called big players that have left and watch their game decline. The reason A cole looked good playing at Arsenal is because of Arsene Wenger and the way Arsenal now play football. D Bergkamp knew that, Henry knows it too. Truly great players do not want the limelight, they dont want their private moments sold for a dollar either. Ashley Cole - shame on you for forsaking the potential of greatness for a few dollars more and an OK magazine cover.
everyone here has slated cole but you also have to look at it in his position. he owes arsenal nothing seeing as he was an integral part of the most successful part of the clubs life. and he has to look out for himself. of course hes going to want to have the money and status of beckham, and he wants to win more titles and a higher wage, who can blame him, but if it goes wrong noone will feel sorry for him because it will be his own fault. chelski dont actually have a left back so hed be 1st 11 and deninatley have a better chance of winning trophies than at the emirates stadium. lets look at arsenal for a moment. if they lose cole that will be 4 key players this season(campbell,pires,bergkamp) and they havnt replaced them (only brought in 1 player). i beleive they will finish fifth below spurs this season and i also beleive cole has the right to leave, you should look at all the good things he did for the club, and blame chelski for his leaving not him.
well thats a liverpool fans veiw on the matter anyway. good to see a scum fan writing about matters important to other fans rather than just about man u(unlike the chelsea blogs ive seen around.)
Cole is an idiot who has lost touch with reality. He met with Chelsea without his club’s knowledge - and then could not understand why his club did not support him in the subsequent investigations
Hahah… well we got Gallas in exchange for the insolent little s”"” so rite now i don’t give a damn.
The world’s best centreback(arguably; lets see the Chelski defence without him.Trust me he makes a difference)
for the world’s best left back.
A fine compensation. That plus 5 milion pounds. And we do need centre backs more than left backs.
So thats done and dusted. Let’s move on
thank god the ungrateful scumbag has gone, i must admit i hoped one of the andora players accidentally broke one of his legs but he’d probably sue them for saying he was gay while he was in pain anyway, yes we’ll miss him he was a great player but if he’d stayed he wouldn’t have been the same player just a narky little sod.like last season.
the question is who will chelsea be trying to unsettle next, they have already done this with scott parker and obi (man u signed me at gunpoint) mikel thats arsenal chelsea and charlton so far who’s next?
Name one player who has left Arsenal and gone to a “bigger” club and been as or more successful. Anelka? Vieira? I hope that cAshley spends most of his time on the bench, then gets sold to someone like Newcastle for a couple of million in a few years.
And the EPL need to sort Chelski out as they now see themselves as untouchable. The only way other clubs can compete with them is to try and source out the younger players, but it looks like they have figured this out and are now poaching the youngsters too. They have alledgedly poached some Leeds youngsters and are also tried to unsettle Niklas Bendtner. They need taking down a peg or two. Fining them won’t work. They need points deducting.
Maybe inforced relegation. That would be nice.
‘Name one player who has left Arsenal and gone to a “bigger? club and been as or more successful’
Seems some of us fellow gooners came on the ride a bit late…Anyone remember Ray Kennedy going to Liverpool? Can anyone honestly say that Ray did not have more success at Liverpool?
Or Liam Brady to Juv?
Arsenal is more than just the last 10 years….please remember that.