Although Portsmouth’s Lassana Diarra may be greedy for first-team football, hopping from club to club, Ashley €ole eclipses the Frenchman with his well documented desire for dosh.

Ashle¥ was playing well for Arsenal and everything was going relatively swimmingly until his “chance” meeting at a hotel,

Cole added an extra layer of seediness to the whole affair with a tawdry chin-wagging session with cash kings Chelsea. Clearly looking for pastures new, in January 2005 Cole scampered off for some strictly off-the-record secret chats at the Royal Park Hotel with then Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon, as well as Cole’s agent Jonathan Barnett.

'Is it any wonder that Arsene Wenger doesn’t seem to like English players?'


Cole was caught in the act, and found guilty of a footballing extra marital affair – cheating on his club Arsenal with their rivals Chelsea, and all parties present at the hotel were fined as a result.

Is it any wonder that Arsene Wenger doesn’t seem to like English players?

Although Cole signed a one-year extension to his Arsenal contract in July 2005, a year later he had swapped clubs, moving on to Chelsea. Once safely away from his supposed abusers he accused Arsenal of hanging him out to dry.

In his autobiography My Defence, a flouncing moan of a book, he set out to do exactly what it said on the sleeve and fight back against the allegations. Unfortunately this book simply fanned the flames of outrage.

The most famous passage is undoubtedly the selfish money-driven rant about his contract negotiations with Arsenal when Barnett called our intrepid hero with the distressing news that Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein was only prepared to offer him £55,000 a week, a dastardly attempt to undercut Cole’s very reasonable £60,000-a-week pay demands.

Cole, quite understandably, was outraged: "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."
 
Cole throws out other controversial passages, accusing Arsenal of leaving him to the sharks and freezing him out, not even letting him participate in a team photo.

But the one thing that his fateful biography did was cement in everybody’s mind just how greedy the player is.