Joe Cole Told to Cut Down his 100,000 Pounds Weekly Wage Demand; Talks with Man United Fall Through
England midfielder Joe Cole was recently released by Chelsea as his contract with The Blues just ended. He has been told that he needs to lower his demand of a weekly wage of 100,000 pounds per week for him to be considered by any Premier League club.
Former English champions Manchester United have already said they will not be able to pay the huge amount and are no longer in the running to sign him, while Tottenham Hotspurs are still interested but they too are not expected to meet up with the weekly wage demand.
Joe Cole moved to Chelsea from West Ham 5 seasons ago, and was released by the London club earlier this month, after failing to agree on terms for a new contract for the 28 year old.
Joe Cole was not able to get a regular start at Chelsea, but he still demanded to be at par with players like Terry and Lampard when it came to weekly wages.
Tottenham Hotspurs are quite confident that they will sign the midfielder, especially after Cole announced that he would prefer to stay in England.
A number of teams, including his former club West Ham United, another London club Arsenal, the cash rich Manchester city and Liverpool are all believed to be interested in attaining his services. Manchester City, who have the cash to meet his demands, are for now more interested in signing his England teammate James Milner, who certainly was a standout performer in the World Cup for England.
Joe Cole has repeatedly said that the reason that his contract talks broke down at Chelsea is not money, even though it is widely known that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich categorically refused to meet his demands. Cole has said that he wanted to play for a manager who believed in him, hinting that he was not among the favourites when it came to Carlo Ancelotti.
Cole said that he wanted to play more in the centre of midfield as he used to for West Ham United. Cole added that the emphasis in English football is not on technique. He said that in every team in England that he has played for, including the national team, the emphasis is on getting the ball to the strikers as quickly as they can, rather than working on the build-up play. Cole, who seemed quite disappointed by the approach played by clubs in the Premier League, said that teams in Spain and Italy put in a lot of hard work in the build-up play and do not rush the game. That makes them more capable of sustaining the level of the game for the full 90 minutes; rather than having brief periods of dominance, they try and dominate the whole game.
Cole added that passing and movement of the ball in the middle of the field is the backbone of game-play, and a team should try and focus on coming up with something like 6 meaningful attacks in a half, instead of 10 long range efforts on or off target.
Joe Cole is currently not the only player from the England team whose future is up for debate right now. Manchester City is hunting down James Milner and is expected to put in a transfer request very soon to Aston Villa, while Matthew Upson is yet to make his plans clear to West Ham United. Upson has been linked to a move to Sunderland that is worth 7 million pounds.
In other news, players like Steven Gerrard (from Liverpool) and Ashley Cole (from Chelsea) are continuously linked with a big money move to Real Madrid; however, no formal talks have taken place.
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