http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/196227.html "I can only play for teams that I'm passionate about and I think that's what went wrong for me at Liverpool," Cole said. "I didn't feel a connection with the club or the place that I had at Chelsea and West Ham. "I had seven great years at Chelsea but the club wanted to go in a certain direction and I wasn't involved. So I was left with two real options - Liverpool or Spurs. "Spurs was probably the best option because they were offering me a five-year deal and it meant I could stay in familiar surroundings. "But I just couldn't do it, I just couldn't see myself pulling that Spurs shirt over my head. With the rivalry between Spurs and West Ham and Chelsea, it felt a bit mercenary." Cole believes the mentality at Liverpool made it difficult for him to settle in, with their insistence on being known as the "biggest club in the country" catching him off guard. "When I joined, the guy interviewing me said 'you've joined the biggest club in the country' and reeled off the trophies they'd won," he said. "I just said 'yeah, if you put it like that, I suppose you're right' and Liverpool used that as the headline to the interview. "I didn't want to upset anyone so I just went along with it. But obviously they're not the biggest club in the country any more. How do you judge how big a club are? Nottingham Forest won the European Cup twice but they're not a bigger club than Chelsea."
I saw this interview the other day and it did make me chuckle. Its just a certain spaz element in the Liverpool media that insist on calling themselves the biggest club in the country. That hasnt been the case for over 20 years and most sane Liverpool fans know that. In terms of turnover, fanbase and trophy success, both Man Utd and Chelsea surpass them. At best you could argue they are second best due to history......arguably
Nice to see such honest and open comments from a footballer. Always liked Joe and shame his injuries ruined his last 18 months or so with us. Still won more premier league titles than slippery Gerrard too.
Who knows what a 'big' club is, but Liverpool do lead everyone on trophy count if you include the main European and domestic trophies over all time.
Liverpool are a big club, but they cannot call themselves the biggest club in England if they haven't been English champions for 24 years.
In my eyes what constitutes a big club is fanbase, turnover and trophy success, and by trophy success I mean in the last decade, otherwise every club could stake a claim as a "big" club. Like Joe said, Nottingham Forest won back to back European Cups.....but have won jack **** in decades. I'm not trying to diss Liverpool, just saying that there needs to be some kind of time limit on this **** otherwise every club in England could say they are a "Big Club"
Exactly, teams like Wolves, Sunderland, Preston all were big clubs that won trophies during a time but at some point it has to move on. Would you ever get a Madrid, Bayern or Juve go so long without a league title? Uruguay have won 2 world cups but it was 50 plus years ago and no one would still class them as a heavy weight in the national arena. Liverpool are still a big club, great fan base, trophies etc but now below United that's for sure.
We had this on our board aswell, the interview he talks about was with Claire Rourke one of the journalists and presenters from within the club so she would talk in those terms.
Aye, like I said, I think it was just an over eager Liverpool fan bigging the club up during the interview. maybe she got a little excited at the signing and what not. I really liked Joe Cole when he was with us, was definitely one of my favourite players. I will always remember the move at the end of 2006 I think it was against Man Utd, when he beat 3 defenders and ran clear to score, sealing the title for us.....Ill try to find the vid: [video=youtube;F6PwO0wzl_U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6PwO0wzl_U[/video] This is also the match Rooney broke his metatarsal in, ruling him out of the opening stages of the 2006 World Cup.
Good old days.. We were not this good since Jose left us first time. Here is hoping that we would better those days this year
