[Archived] Andy Cole

[roversmum]

it's all down to who gets on the plane to germany,cole is named just like duffer last year

Somehow, I don't see a scenario similar to that of last year, when Duffer ran in tears from the airport to set up meetings with Chelsea

[rover6]

Cole and Flitcroft in the squad according to the offical website.

Good news, imo, (Cole anyway) but from the sounds of things, it would only take a bid from Fulham to prise him away.

Bit surprised Souness hasn't taken a few more youngsters. McEveley, Douglas and Gallagher are in but not Johnson, Fitzgerald, Peter or Donnelly.

[Tris]

Good news, imo, (Cole anyway) but from the sounds of things, it would only take a bid from Fulham to prise him away.

Bit surprised Souness hasn't taken a few more youngsters. McEveley, Douglas and Gallagher are in but not Johnson, Fitzgerald, Peter or Donnelly.

From the sounds of what things exactly ??

From the sounds of the sloppy website news writers picking up on one crappy tabloid piece by the Nixon buffoon which has now been proven to be factually incorrect ???

As for the youngsters, this is a first team pre-season warm up with 24 players going - it would be barmy to take any more.

Especially as the youngsters have their own tournament to prepare for down in the South West which starts 3 days after the Germany trip ends. (Rovers play Palace in Saltash on 29th, also involved are Cardiff and Plymouth).

Edited July 14, 2004 by Tris

[Philly Rover ®]

Interesting to read on Sky Sports that Fulham are apparently in for Mido. Good news in my opinion... if they're pursuing other strikers in the transfer market then it just might prove that they don't feel too confident about their chances of landing Cole.

[greggyk]

The LET is saying that rovers have agreed to sell Andy Cole.

This is really bad news. If he goes, I expect another battle against relegation this season. Why dont the club just sell all our best players, Duff,Dunn,Berg,Sukur now Cole. Who's next, Stead?? no, why dont we sell Friedel for £1m yeah, and make a profit!

ffs!

[krislu]

The LET is saying that rovers have agreed to sell Andy Cole.

This is really bad news. If he goes, I expect another battle against relegation this season. Why dont the club just sell all our best players, Duff,Dunn,Berg,Sukur now Cole. Who's next, Stead?? no, why dont we sell Friedel for £1m yeah, and make a profit!

ffs!

Berg - said it was his last season, Souness and JW made other plans because of this

Dunn - didnt want to sign a new contract - had to sell!

Duff - sad enough we couldnt afford to say no to £17m

Sukur - did he ever sign a permanent deal? Anyway he wanted a ridiculous amount of wage

As for Cole, I agree, I dont understand what Souness is thinking if he decides to get rid of him...

[bob fleming]

Cole on £55,000 per week ?!?

There's your LET link.

I'll be first to say it then. If he goes and we get a suitable replacement (I have confidence in Stead, Gallagher, Dickov and a lot of hope for Jansen - but I'd sooner get another experienced striker in as well) then I'm not too bothered. How very controversial.

If you read the LET last night I'm sure you'd have seen this coming. Sorry I don't have the exact quote but Souness did say something along the lines that if one or two left it would give him the opportunity "to go again" into the market.

It's another falling out though - but with a player he's already fallen out with so at least he's showing some consistency.

Finally, in a complete departure to what appears to be the vast majority on this MB, Rovers fans who I've spoken to over the last few days about Cole's possible departure seem quite pleased or indifferent. Certainly not incredibly fed up. It's all about opinions.

Interesting times ahead.

[den]

LET article - Cole will be allowed to leave.

[broadsword]

Has-been!

[RevidgeBlue]

Go on then Bryan and Tris it won't hurt - "Revidge you were right all along."

This has obviously been Souness's intention all along judging by his comments this summer.

Bob, mark me down in the "incredibly fed up" brigade. We have replaced our leading scorer and second all time premiership top scorer with a four or five goal a season relegation specialist. This places a near intolerable burden on young Stead to score enough goals to keep us up.

As for the timing it's exactly the same as last year. Get right up to to pre season and we see a star name departing. Of course it wouldn't have anything to do with getting the vast majority of the S/T renewals in first would it?.

[Ste B]

Go on then Bryan and Tris it won't hurt - "Revidge you were right all along."

This has obviously been Souness's intention all along judging by his comments this summer.

Bob, mark me down in the "incredibly fed up" brigade. We have replaced our leading scorer and second all time premiership top scorer with a four or five goal a season relegation specialist. This places a near intolerable burden on young Stead to score enough goals to keep us up.

As for the timing it's exactly the same as last year. Get right up to to pre season and we see a star name departing. Of course it wouldn't have anything to do with getting the vast majority of the S/T renewals in first would it?.

We've replaced a striker who has got 4-5 goals a season recently with one who hit 14 last year in a worse team.

Although your general point is spot on, that we cannot be getting shut of Cole without having another top class replacement lined up.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

I've just read the LET article and I'm sorry to say this but I'm becoming increasingly angry and frustrated with Souness.

The partnership of Cole and Stead was showing some real promise last season...ffs! why cant you put your personal differences aside for the good of the club..your paid enough to be be proffessional and responsible on all levels for christs sake man!!

Not one mention of the possible backlash from the Ewood faithful as yet again we look at one of the fan's favourite player's facing the Ewood exit door roughly a month before the new season start's.

The thought of replacing Cole with Dickov is appalling to me,the guy isn't fit to clean his boots and we wont simply find a replacement as good as Cole as there are non available and we are 'skint 'as the club keep's bloody repreatedly telling us.

I'M REALLY SADDENED BY THIS NEWS,ITS PUT A REAL DOWNER ON THE COMING SEASON FOR ME PERSONALLY

[RevidgeBlue]

Although your general point is spot on, that we cannot be getting shut of Cole without having another top class replacement lined up.

We can only live in hope Ste.

[broadsword]

Go on then Bryan and Tris it won't hurt - "Revidge you were right all along."

This has obviously been Souness's intention all along judging by his comments this summer.

Bob, mark me down in the "incredibly fed up" brigade. We have replaced our leading scorer and second all time premiership top scorer with a four or five goal a season relegation specialist. This places a near intolerable burden on young Stead to score enough goals to keep us up.

As for the timing it's exactly the same as last year. Get right up to to pre season and we see a star name departing. Of course it wouldn't have anything to do with getting the vast majority of the S/T renewals in first would it?.

Right about what?

[Laurence]

Its interesting that the LET says that Cole would've been starting on the bench next season, behind Dickov. Surely GS knew what would happen if that was the plan. Well at least we can while away endless hours speculating on a replacement - how about keeping that nice Dwight Yorke after all?

...wonder if Milan Baros fancies the short hop to the east?

thought not

Edited July 14, 2004 by Laurence

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

'With the player reportedly on £55,000 a week, Rovers may well have to soften the blow by coming up with some kind of severance package to get Cole off the books. '

We are now looking at a ridiculous situation where the club has to PAY to offload one of its star players(money we cany afford by all accounts) who nobody really wants to see leave.

JHC!.... Perhaps the story of Rovers paying half his wages while playing for another club are not too far off the mark after all

[vyeo]

to me, it is plain and simple that this reeks of souness' own personal bias. he should be professional enough to put the CLUB, US, BLACKBURN ROVERS ahead of his personal relationship with a player. yes, coley's reporting him to the PFA was perhaps 'unprofessional', but out on the pitch, we've clearly seen him be professional enough to fight hard and perform well for the club. in cole's history, he was not on speaking terms with sheringham, but still formed a decent enough partnership with him at manure. therefore, his professionalism is proven.

as for senile souness, he's proved to us time and again that once he falls out with you, you're screwed. souness is afterall, the gaffer.

if we sell cole, and bring in a replacement of similar class, i'd give souness the benefit of the doubt. however, i suspect that coley will be sold, and dickov will be the replacement. if this is true, then its really a sad day for us. dickov and stead upfront, i would say, plenty of endeavour, but lacking in skill and real quality. for all of stead's goals last season, i still think he is raw, and this season, he might find it much harder to get near last season's form.

come'on souey. prove us wrong.

[den]

Add me to the severely fed - up section. Honestly, if Cole is allowed to leave, I can see that alone costing us our Prem place. If Souey can find a replacement of Cole's quality I'll be amazed.

What's the odds on Radzinski being his replacement? He is desperate to get away from Goodison by all accounts and a previous Souey target.

Radzinski/Dickov and Stead up front? No thanks.

All this could work against Stead's progress. What he needs is another season where he can learn from Cole and be used conservatively along with Gally. Not to be the main striker at his young age and limited experience.

[jim mk2]

While hardly a surprise in view of the smoke signals coming out of Ewood, this is very disappointing news. Cole has driven me to distraction sometimes but I cannot help feel we will be weaker without him.

One can only hope that Souness has another striker of similar quality lined up because (discounting Yorke and Jansen) it places a terrible goalscoring burden on Stead, Gallagher and Dickov, of whom the first two are very inexperienced. A couple of injuries and we are in deep do-dah.

Fortunately, at £55,000 per week (!!) I doubt if we can find any club willing to take over Cole's contract, unless we do a Leeds and pay Cole to play for another club or the player himself takes a very big paycut. The likelihood is that the situation will fester for weeks and possibly months to the dissatisfaction of all concerned.

Souness out.

Edited July 14, 2004 by jim mk2

[NEARREY]

The only thing that I find strange is that it took so long for Rovers to decide to get rid of him. Why didn't they try straight after the season ended? We could have saved about £1/4million in wages (650 season tickets).

I feel the decision is ultimately right, people get all messed up by Cole's upturn in effort in the last half dozen games and suddenly he's a crowd favourite. Up til then he was getting (justifiably) a lot of stick from the crowd (and this messageboard).

Get rid now, save £1m - £3m in wages and find a replacement who will play for the shirt with passion.

Andy Cole is NOW a 10 goals a season striker or in other words a mediocre premiership striker. So is definately NOT worth the reputed £55k a week plus £1m loyalty payment.

[Scotty]

Personally I think it's a scandalous decision to let Cole go, and it highlights once again that our manager isn't good enough to take the club forward any more. He's slowly ruining the club and, unless the board act quickly, we will be relegated next May.

Every season for as long as I can remember I've been optimistic during the summer - looking forward to the new season. This summer, much like the last one, I'm not looking forward to it at all. We don't have enough quality players, no pace, no guile, and now we're getting rid of our one proven top class forward. Stead may become top class but he's not there yet and it'll be even harder for him to get there now that Cole is leaving.

We could maybe cope without top quality players if we had a manager who was tactically adept and inventive. But we haven't - quite the opposite in fact.

Still, no doubt we'll replace Cole with a 30-something journeyman that will get the likes of Tris creaming themselves.

[Paul]

Bob, mark me down in the "incredibly fed up" brigade.

Put me in there as well. We NEED Andy Cole to teach the youngsters how to become a top striker, something Dickov can't provide. I was just getting round to feeling positive and now this.

Souness better get this season off to a decent start or his position with me will be untenable. You've got half a dozen games Souey to prove you've learnt something out of last season's debacle. After that don't count on this fan's support.

Very, very angry and disappointed. Has the man learnt nothing? Can he not see Cole is our best striker and Dickov should start on the bench?

[Paul]

Andy Cole is NOW a 10 goals a season striker or in other words a mediocre premiership striker.

......and Dickov scored how many as Leicester went down?

[den]

How about a swap deal. Cole for McBride?

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

'Andy Cole is NOW a 10 goals a season striker or in other words a mediocre premiership striker.'

And how very precious those goals were from our 'mediocre' top scorer last season......

The club has set itself up for a big fall here and make no mistake

To start Dickov ahead of Cole is nothing short is crazy,sheer rank stupidity.

Edited July 14, 2004 by SIMON GARNERS 194