Some Chelsea players end up leaving the club but they will always keep their blue blood and love for the club.
Some players leave and automatically become the biggest fans of the club, with John Terry being the ultimate example of that.
Joe Cole is another former Chelsea player who stays as one of their biggest fans even after he left the club, and he is often seen and heard passionately speaking about ‘his’ club now. It’s great when this happens, and shows what an effect this club can have on people.
Cole’s career at Chelsea was stunted due to injuries, and it’s a shame because we would probably be speaking about him as a club legend right now rather than a cult here, even though the latter is also a major compliment.
The former winger has been explaining about how he left Chelsea, how he regrets joining Liverpool, and how he could never have joined Chelsea’s rival Tottenham!
“I done my knee and that was probably the start of the end of my career because I was never the same player after that,” he said on The Obi One podcast.
“I done everything, ACL, PCL, MCL – I was out for 11 months.
“Chelsea were right, from a business perspective. They stopped contract negotiations to see how I was when I came back.
“I came back in October. By this time, Carlo Ancelotti had come into the club, I was coming in off the bench, playing well, but it was hard to break back into the team.
“The guys went away to the Africa Cup of Nations in the January. I knew I’d have a chance to play regularly.
“I played every game, six, seven or eight games in a row, played really well and then they started, ‘we can offer you this new contract’, but it wasn’t at what it was before.
“My ego got involved a little bit and football was more of a struggle. I would play and my knee would blow up. I was in a lot of pain.
“We would win a game but I couldn’t train for three or four days afterwards. I really wrecked myself. That’s how my body was after it.
“Something clicked and I thought to myself, ‘I’m never going to get back to the player I was. I’ve got to leave’.
“Because I didn’t want to finish my Chelsea career just sitting there on the injury table.
“I had a choice between Liverpool or Spurs because Arsenal pulled out – I just couldn’t go to Spurs.
“It would have made sense, Harry Redknapp was the manager, they had a good team, I lived in London, half my pals are Spurs fans. I just couldn’t do it.
“Liverpool is a great club. It didn’t work for me there but it is a fantastic club.
“But if I could have my time again, I would probably go abroad, somewhere hot, because playing in the heat actually helped my knee.”
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