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Joe Cole going on loan to Lille

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[quote author=Binny link=topic=46672.msg1397341#msg1397341 date=1315680680]
Came on in the 65th min for Payet, created Lille's 3rd goal vs. 10 men St Etienne. Hazard scored twice in the same match too.
[/quote]

Festival Hazard - Cole
(Gotta enlarge to full screen for proper view)

Great goals by Hazard and good run + nice assist by Cole at 0:44.

Joe Cole has delivered as many assists in 25 mins with Lille as he did in 796 mins with Liverpool in the PL.
 
'I've been happy to be here from the moment I stepped on the training ground. Hazard is a very, very special player and I look forward to forming a great partnership.'
Click to expand...
 
Bit of luck? Joe Cole received £100K a week from LFC in his first year during which he did fuck all and the club is now being paying him £50K per week to play in France.

For that salary Liverpool were expecting him to make a significant contribution to the first team rather than to be put out to pasture at the fields of Anfield Road.

Fuck him.
 
[quote author=themn link=topic=46672.msg1402838#msg1402838 date=1316625035]
Maybe Joe will put a good word in.........maybe.
[/quote]maybe they will be doing that for Liverpool next season
 
Hopefully Hazard will think we must have a squad crammed with shit hot talent if the poor mans Messi can't get a game for us.
 
Haha. At least he can start practicing his English with Cole. Cole's definitely benefiting from a run of games (with 2 assists and a goal). Already played a quarter (189 min) of the total no. of minutes (808 min) he managed for us in the league in 2010/11.

Can't find a better video yet.
Joe Cole LOSC 1-0 Lorient
 
DAVID BECKHAM is in for a fashion awakening if he moves to France – after Joe Cole revealed his surprise over the choice of players’ pants at Lille!

Becks is being pursued by PSG but, as Cole reflected on his great start across the Channel, he said: “A big difference is the underwear players have. Here, they wear crazy stuff... prints, colours.

“If you wear that in England, other players burn it or throw it way. But this is France and fashion.

“Pink (left), orange, green, fluorescent... and they play wearing that too. They have a sense of humour.”
Click to expand...
 
Joe Cole is making great strides on the road back to the big time.

The 2006 World Cup star has been an outsider as Fabio Capello’s England moved towards Euro 2012.

But, having moved to French champions Lille from Liverpool on a season-long loan, the 29-year-old has hit the ground running.

He is the first England international to play in the French top flight for two decades and has earned rave reviews for his skill and trickery.

Although Capello’s squad for the finals in Poland and the Ukraine next summer is busy picking itself, Cole could yet gate-crash the party after seemingly finding his spiritual home in northern France.

“I felt the spirit right away," said Cole. "Everyone here seems to understand one another and be friends.

“It’s a relaxing and cheerful place. The working environment is excellent and it is a pleasure to come and work here every day.”

It is all a far cry from this time last year, when his dream Bosman move from Chelsea quickly turned into a nightmare.

After making his Liverpool debut in the Europa League, Cole was sent off on his Premier League debut for a challenge on Arsenal's Laurent Koscielny.

On his return from suspension, he failed to find the form that had catapulted him into the England picture and taken him to the World Cup in Germany.

Then, at the end of last October, Cole picked up a hamstring injury that halted his progress even further.

By the end of the season, he’d made just nine Premier League starts and 11 appearances off the bench, and become more and more of a peripheral figure.

He is back with a bang at Lille, however, showing he can make goals as well as take them as his confidence levels grow.

He is already conversing with his missus Carly in French as he bids to master the language and is pleased to have taken the gamble of moving abroad.

“English people, in general, are not great travellers, and nor are we great at going somewhere and staying there," said Cole.

“We are islanders, which people tend to forget. As soon as I arrived at the Luchin (Lille’s training base) and met my team-mates, I knew that I had made the right decision.”

Lille are unbeaten since Cole’s arrival at the end of the transfer window.

Should he clinch League, Cup or European success, he will join a select group of top British names that have clinched silverware abroad.

They include Chris Waddle who, in 1998, was voted the second best Marseille player of the century (behind Jean-Pierre Papin) having won the French title three times and been a runner-up in the European Cup.

David Beckham spent four years at Real Madrid, where he lifted the La Liga title under Capello.

As a player, Norwich boss Paul Lambert became the first Brit to win the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund in 1997.

And Steve McManaman lifted the Champions League trophy with Real Madrid 11 years ago having scored in the Final.

Cole’s first impressions of football in France are of a far more cerebral game to that played in the Premier League.

“It is very technical, and very tactical. That is the principal philosophy of this league,” he said.

“Players in Ligue 1 are very intelligent. Everything is thought through - it is very different to England.

“I wouldn’t say that it is better or worse. Usually, it should take three to six months for a player to settle into playing in a new league.

“I am just very happy with the way things have gone so far as I have adapted very quickly.”

Lille sit fifth in the French League - four points off cash-drenched leaders PSG - with every team having played nine games so far.

Cole has praised coach Rudi Garcia for the exciting brand of football that is slowly helping him back to his creative best.

He said: “I share his philosophy: attacking football, movement and possession of the ball.

“These things are crucial. If you have 60 per cent of the possession in most league games, you will be able to attack and score more.

"It is exciting.”
Click to expand...
 
Jesus, he scores a goal in fucking France or whatever and now he's being tipped to break into the England squad.
 
we can't mock the standard of the french league in one breath and then drool at the signing of hazard in the next.
 
[quote author=spider-neil link=topic=46672.msg1410434#msg1410434 date=1318231077]
we can't mock the standard of the frenchDutch league in one breath and then drool at the signing of hazardSuarez in the next.
[/quote]
 
[quote author=spider-neil link=topic=46672.msg1410434#msg1410434 date=1318231077]
we can't mock the standard of the french league in one breath and then drool at the signing of hazard in the next.
[/quote]

What the fuck has hazard got to do with this?

Cole was gash for a season with us, goes to ligue one and scores a goal and makes one or two and all of a sudden he can fill the Rooney shaped void in the england side.
 
Although in coles defense: has Rooney had a decent game for England since euro 2004 ?

In fact has anyone in an England shirt had a stand out performance since then ?
 
each to their own but I personally am overjoyed cole is doing well.

a) good performances in france will increase his profile and help us sell him.
b) if we fail to sell him then his renewed confidence can only help the team.
 
[quote author=spider-neil link=topic=46672.msg1410451#msg1410451 date=1318238911]
each to their own but I personally am overjoyed cole is doing well.

a) good performances in france will increase his profile and help us sell him.
b) if we fail to sell him then his renewed confidence can only help the team.
[/quote]

Much in the same way that good performances on loan helped us sell Acquilani and how his renewed confidence helped us greatly.
 
[quote author=StevieM link=topic=46672.msg1410478#msg1410478 date=1318243791]
[quote author=spider-neil link=topic=46672.msg1410451#msg1410451 date=1318238911]
each to their own but I personally am overjoyed cole is doing well.

a) good performances in france will increase his profile and help us sell him.
b) if we fail to sell him then his renewed confidence can only help the team.
[/quote]

Much in the same way that good performances on loan helped us sell Acquilani and how his renewed confidence helped us greatly.
[/quote]

ORD_L115A3_and_Sniper_Ghillie_lg.jpg
 
[quote author=spider-neil link=topic=46672.msg1410451#msg1410451 date=1318238911]
each to their own but I personally am overjoyed cole is doing well.

a) good performances in france will increase his profile and help us sell him.
b) if we fail to sell him then his renewed confidence can only help the team.
[/quote]

Learn to read or do one, spidey.

Im talking about the prospect of him playing for England , at no point did I say: ' oh, I do hope Cole fucks up in France so we can keep his awesomeness on the payroll/bench for another few years'
 
Early afternoon drinking decaffeinated espresso at a cafe just off Lille's Place du Général de Gaulle, the placarded stragglers from a trade union protest against austerity measures adding to the hustle and bustle on the cobbled street, and the Englishman abroad seems at ease. Content, even. Joe Cole has training scheduled for later in the day before he and his wife, Carly, attend a first classroom French lesson since their schooldays. Life is hectic but, as the drone from the strikers' megaphones recedes, there is time to take it all in.

"Our feet haven't touched the floor since we arrived but we're slowly getting the most important things sorted out, like the French classes," Cole says. "When I can, I've been doing this: sitting in cafes, flicking through L'Equipe. I've been trying to immerse myself in the culture. I've just stopped short of putting a beret on and a string of onions round my neck. This is a beautiful city. I didn't know what to expect but life is good. There's a saying here: 'When you arrive in the north of France, you cry. But when you leave, you cry even more.' People fall in love with the place and its sense of community. It just feels right."

It is refreshing to find Cole so positive. The 29-year-old's career appeared to have veered off course, the expiry of his contract at Chelsea in the summer of 2010 confirmed as he lingered on the fringes of an England side labouring ignominiously at the World Cup finals in South Africa. A free transfer to Liverpool was supposed to rejuvenate, the move initially appearing a natural fit, only for patchy form, a sending-off, niggling injuries, a managerial change and upheaval in the boardroom to cast him back to the periphery. The real surprise is that it has taken a season-long loan move across the Channel to Ligue 1, a path not trodden by an England international who should be in his pomp since Chris Waddle joined Marseille 22 years ago, to spark Cole back to life.

Some five games into his domestic career at Lille Olympique Sporting Club (Losc) and the midfielder is already adored. A stream of autograph hunters interrupts the conversation over coffee, with most wandering up merely to say "thank you". Presumably for signing in the first place. A shimmy, swerve, dart and assist in his first involvement as a substitute at Saint-Etienne last month set Cole's upbeat tone. A blistering 25-yard goal that burst beyond Lorient's Fabien Audard maintained the grand entrance. Lille are fifth, four points from money-flushed Paris Saint-Germain, and entertain Internazionale, now coached by Cole's former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri, in the Champions League on Tuesday. They are a team prospering in one of the most technically proficient leagues in Europe, and a club who will move to a 55,000-seat stadium next summer. Cole has reason to suppose his luck has turned.

Feeling as if he belongs still requires work. "People think of the Englishman abroad and it's typically about sinking 10 pints of lager and attacking the karaoke but, regardless of the football, this was a chance for me and my family to live in another country," he says. "I'm a lad from Camden Town who never dreamed he'd have the opportunity to live or play football in France. Notoriously, we don't export our players often. But I'd like to hope I could help change that perception. It's about flinging yourself in. I've seen foreigners come to England and the ones who mix, go on the nights out with team-mates and buy into the English mentality, settle better. Those who are a bit tentative or shy struggle. So I'm trying to mix as much as I can.

"The language is part of that. If I'd had a crystal ball I'd have paid more attention back at school in my French lessons but it just didn't interest me. Now I'm starting almost from scratch. We're doing the Michel Thomas audio book French course, and we'll have classroom lessons every week. I can order a coffee, a mineral water, and am picking up silly things. I asked the guys this morning 'à quelle heure' we would be training 'cet après-midi'. Little things like that."

Proper integration takes time. The midfielder departed Losc's training complex Domaine de Luchin clutching a well-thumbed copy of Alexandre Dellal's Le foot en 7 langues. His 19-month-old daughter, Ruby, starts nursery next week and will grow used to the family speaking French around the rented apartment in central Lille. When Cole finally gets round to buying a television they will watch local channels, their intake of the Premier League limited to Canal Plus's Match of ze Day.

"It'll be very difficult to be fluent in nine months but I'd like to be able to get by. I guess you need to put this into context. I grew up with Richard Garcia at West Ham and he'd left Australia at 15 to come to England. That's leaving home. My career had taken me from east to west London before Liverpool, and you can be in London in no time on the Eurostar from here but we don't have a house in England and it's not something I'll do often. You have to broaden your horizons sometimes. Experience different things. Like I had frogs' legs the other day, and they were really nice. Just like oily chicken wings. Beautiful. There's a place in central Lille that does them. You should try them."

That was said with a chuckle but this is a player who is attacking a new life with gusto on and off the pitch. The form he has already displayed for Losc will baffle Liverpudlians frustrated that lingering memories of Cole's first year at the club are more of a dismissal on Premier League debut and only sporadic flashes of his talent thereafter. The club who are supplementing his wages, and could take him back next summer, confront Manchester United on Saturday.

"I just didn't play enough," he says. "I was suspended and then came back into a struggling side and, under Roy [Hodgson], the tactics didn't suit me. I'd never criticise him – he had a tough job at the time – but the team weren't playing well and, when that happens, the first players to be dropped are always the flair players and the youngsters. That's just the way it is.

Under Kenny [Dalglish] I'd had a few injuries and the side was settled. As a youngster, at West Ham and Chelsea, I'd been lucky enough to make an impact when I came on and earned the chance to stay involved. At Liverpool, I felt like a young player again. I always needed to do something special just to earn another chance. And it didn't happen for me. I'm not going to blame anyone else and I like the club and I'm sure they'll get where they need to go. But I had to come here and play again. Traditionally, it takes players time to settle in a new country. It's rare you get one who hits the ground running like Luis Suárez. But I don't have that luxury. I've not signed for four years. I'm here initially for nine months."

His own explosive start suggests he is suited to Ligue 1, where referees offer more protection than in the Premier League and the pace of the game is more precise than helter-skelter. Rudi Garcia's attack-minded Lille side share his philosophy. The only shock has been the reality that he has to clean his own boots – "In England, once you're a pro, you leave all that behind" – with Cole revelling alongside the talented Eden Hazard. "Domestic games are tactically like Champions League matches but everyone in the division we've come up against so far has tried to play football the right way," he says. "European referees allow technical players to flourish, whereas they let more go back in the Premier League.

"The tempo of the game doesn't change in the final third, the urgent part of the pitch where defenders still shut you down. But, sometimes, teams drop off and we get to be a bit more patient in our buildup. You have to be cleverer with your movement. I've been making runs I don't need to make, charging forward to close down a full-back as I would in the Premier League. That's what I've been programmed to do. Back home, you'd have team-mates screaming at you to 'push up on him'. But when I do it over here I look back over my shoulder and my team-mates are, like: 'What are you doing? Conserve your energy.' I'm learning but that's to be expected. Once you stop learning, there's no point playing. You'd have mastered it. And no one's mastered football yet."

Still, should the momentum of his first six weeks be maintained, then Cole could yet have a long-term future in France, perhaps thrusting him up alongside Waddle as a cult figure across the Channel. Certainly, success at the top of the division and in Europe would offer Fabio Capello a reminder that here is a player who would relish adding to his 56 caps, the last of which came in humiliation to Germany in Bloemfontein. "I miss playing for my country," he says. "I was a regular in the squad for 10 years and perhaps took it for granted I would always be there. Now, having not been picked for a year, turning 30 next month and with the young players having come in and done well, you start to wonder: 'Are they still looking at me?'

"I hope I will be noticed. A lot of people in England questioned why I came over here and maybe wrote me off. Perhaps they're now thinking I'm not finished after all. It's not that I want to prove them wrong – that would be the wrong motivation – but I do want to prove to myself that I'm still a top player. This an environment where I can do that. I see John Terry mentioned the other day that he and I had wanted to go swimming with sharks in South Africa. In a cage, of course. We weren't allowed but I'm one for trying different things. Swimming with sharks. Living in France … " This Englishman abroad already feels at home.
Click to expand...
 
That is one impressive interview, dignified, self-aware and looking to the future. I'm impressed and I hope things turn out well for Joe.
 
Kind of miss him...running around with that gormless face, fat tounge hanging out....He knows loads of tricks....He was like a slobbery Labrador...he's gone to live on a farm in France now.
 
[quote author=StevieM link=topic=46672.msg1410478#msg1410478 date=1318243791]
[quote author=spider-neil link=topic=46672.msg1410451#msg1410451 date=1318238911]
each to their own but I personally am overjoyed cole is doing well.

a) good performances in france will increase his profile and help us sell him.
b) if we fail to sell him then his renewed confidence can only help the team.
[/quote]

Much in the same way that good performances on loan helped us sell Acquilani and how his renewed confidence helped us greatly.
[/quote]

Ah, but here's the thing, Joe Cole's not a cunt.

He really wanted to play for us and probably still does.
 
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