Ashley Cole, football’s Augustus Gloop – a greedy money obsessed swine, as evidenced by his seedy meeting and illegal at the Royal Park Hotel – where Cole was tapped up and lured in with promises of mountains of dosh. Cole later compounded his greedmeister image by the passage in his autobiography listing his grievances when offered a piddling £55k a week by Arsenal:
“When I heard Jonathan repeat the figure of £55,000 I said.’He is taking the piss Jonathan!’ I was so incensed. I was trembling with anger. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.”
So Cole is, all in all, a tad money obsessed – but yesterday Cashley seemed to want to shrug off his “lazy” title and head in a different direction, performing an outrageously dirty tackle on Tottenham’s Alan Hutton – one that threatened to take the sheen off Tottenhams magnificent 4-4 draw with title wannabes Chelsea.
Referee Mike Riley was bombarded with an avalanche of demands for Cole’s sending off, but he only saw yellow. Here are a selection of opinions on Cole’s dirty tackle:
Gus Poyet (to linesman):
‘That is a f****** red card and you know it.’
Juande Ramos:
‘The referee decided it was a yellow card, but we’ve seen tackles which were much less serious and they have earned red cards.
‘Robbie Keane was sent off for a tackle less serious than that against Birmingham. But we have to respect the officials’ decisions.
‘It’s best not to dwell on that kind of action. We’re just very fortunate there weren’t any injuries to players.’
Avram Grant:
‘The assistant referee was in my way. I saw the Tottenham bench jump up, but the referee was two metres away. We must respect his decision.’
So over to you, was Ashley Cole’s tackle a dirty one?