Cole expects plenty of terrace taunts from Gooners when the teams meet tomorrow at The Emirates.
The England defender left Arsenal in 2006 in acrimonious circumstances after being found guilty of secretly meeting Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho.
And now Seaman has talked about the episode, telling the Daily Star Sunday: “Ashley Cole got dealt with badly at Arsenal and he was hung out to dry a little bit – and that is all I can really say.”
Chelsea, Mourinho and Cole were handed record penalties in the Premier League’s tapping-up inquiry into their meeting at a restaurant in January 2005.
After the probe ended, in June 2005, Chelsea were fined £300,000 and given a suspended three-point deduction, while Mourinho was fined £200,000 and Cole £100,000.
Cole and Mourinho’s fines were reduced on appeal to £75,000 each while Cole’s agent Jonathan Barnett had his licence suspended for 18 months and was fined £100,000.
Cole then revealed in his autobiography he was made to feel a “scapegoat” and was “fed to the sharks” by the club over the tapping-up affair.
The Arsenal left-back was also upset by the £35,000-a-week terms offered by then vice-chairman David Dein.
Cole was aware Arsenal team-mates were earning up to £100,000 a week and regarded the offer as derisory.
Eventually his agent Barnett said he had shaken hands with Dein on a deal worth £60,000 a week.
But in January 2005, Cole says the Arsenal board decided to cut the offer to £55,000. By then an England regular, Cole was driving to his mum’s house in Chigwell in Essex, when Barnett called with the news and the defender reportedly nearly “swerved” off the road.
Cole targets Dein for not doing enough to keep him at Arsenal, while Thierry Henry was being wined and dined, getting told how much the club wanted him to stay.
Looking back at it, Seaman said: “The true stories never come out.
“Ashley has been dealt with wrongly by the club and I am not going to go into anything else on that.
“I love Ashley as a player and as a man. He is also the best left-back in the world, not one of them, the best left-back.
“He used to get changed down but one from me, because he was number three.
“I have seen him grow up into the great player that he is now.
“And I feel really proud for what he has achieved. I know some Arsenal fans may not like that but I am sorry but I know what I know, and I like him.”
Seaman, asked who was the greatest Arsenal player on his time there, added: “I could never say one because that would upset so many people. It is so hard.
“The first three I think of are Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry, and Ian Wright.
“They are strikers but then with the defence I just say the back four, well I have to say the back five or else Martin Keown gets the right hump.
“Patrick Vieira, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit were also brilliant.
“I mean, I have been so privileged to be part of it all.
But if I had to pick one name as the best-ever Arsenal player, it would one of Wrighty, Thierry, or Dennis.”
No comments:
Post a Comment