Football Transfer Rumours: Carlo Ancelotti says thank you to Cole, Ballack and Balleti- the club has made no bid for Torres
The departure of Joe Cole from Chelsea was inevitable since January this year, when the talks failed over his new contract and he was allowed to talk to different clubs.
Under the Bosman ruling, any player can talk to potential suitors if he has less than six months left on his contract and that’s exactly what happened. Cole was not willing to settle for the 90k wages that he was on and demanded a pay rise, while Chelsea refused to give it to him.
It was a deadlock that is simply mindboggling considering the power house that Chelsea are. Money has never been an issue for the London club and in the recent transfer windows, they have splashed insane amounts of cash to bring in desired players and letting a player like Cole go, is just unimaginable but in English football unimaginable happens every day.
Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti has come out to claim that Cole’s departure from Stamford Bridge is due to the economic differences between the two parties involved as the player has left the club as a Bosman agent.
The majority of Blues support was behind Cole and after his future at the club was the subject of the discussion in every pub in Central London and on July the 1st he was a free agent, when his contract with his club was over.
Cole spent 7 years at Chelsea since joining the club from West Ham where he graduated from the youth academy along with the likes of Terry and Lampard.
Carlo Ancelotti is very disappointed with the player’s departure but has said that the matter was out of his hands, as the matter was being discussed in the upper echelons of the club.
Ancelotti said, the problem was between the player, the club and the involved money, thus when Ancelotti has no control over any of the player’s wages, he was just a mere spectator to the whole saga. The manager has said that he wanted the player to stay at the club, even when he bought another winger that can play in the same position as Cole did. Chelsea bought Yossi Benayoun from Liverpool for a paltry sum of 5 million pounds and while it was considered as one of the best deals of the summer, the departure of Cole is anything but.
Two other players that left Chelsea as free agents were Michael Ballack and Juliano Balleti. Ballack has since then joined Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga, while Balleti still remains a free agent, considering a move to one of his preferred clubs.
Ancelotti further said that all these three players did a fantastic job for the club and thanked them for their services for the club.
Ancelotti, since joining the London outfit in the summer has guided Chelsea to their third Premier League crown and thinks that his side has enough fire power to cope with the demands of the new season even with the departures of three important players.
Ancelotti also revealed that winning the Champions League will be his side’s top priority next season, as they fell at the last 16 hurdle last season, but they can take some solace in the fact that they lost to the eventual Champions,
Inter Milan.
While talking on the issue of Ashley Cole leaving the club, Ancelotti insists that Cole will still be wearing the blue of Chelsea next season and also played down the speculation that club is making a bid for Liverpool’s Fernando Torres.
Carlo Ancelotti insists Ashley Cole will be at Chelsea next season, while also playing down speculation that the club will move for Fernando Torres.
Ashley Cole has been heavily linked with a move away from Stamford Bridge to the Barnabeau, where his old boss Jose Mourinho has now taken up the position of the manager.
Ancelotti said that he has not spoken to the former Arsenal Left back but insisted that he did not need to, as Cole is still under contract with the Blues and will still be putting in some tireless shifts next season at the Bridge.
In the recent weeks, Chelsea have also been linked with the former Atletico and Spain striker Fernando Torres but Ancelotti denies any such claims saying that in the presence of Drogba, Anelka, Kalou and Danny Sturridge, he does not need to bolster his striking options.
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