Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger recently admitted that the decision to sell Ashley Cole to Chelsea was a mistake.
Meanwhile, Ashley Cole is considered to be one of the greatest left-backs in England. He came up through the ranks of the Gunners’ academy. The former English international made his first-team debut at the age of 18.
The Englishman left Arsenal after helping them to 2 Premier Leagues and 3 FA Cups. Cole was unhappy with Arsenal’s contract extension offer. He eventually joined Chelsea in 2006.
The Gunners camp asked a big sum of £25 million initially. However, they let him go for £5 million after William Gallas was included in the deal. Gallas joined Arsenal and Cole left for Chelsea as a part of the swap deal.
In a recent interview, Arsene Wenger expressed that The Gunners could have done a lot more to keep the left-back in their club.
Arsene Wenger on Cole
In an interview with BeIn Sports, Arsene Wenger was asked to name a player whom he would have liked to re-sign during his time at Arsenal. He made it clear, that he would’ve opined for re-signing Ashley Cole.
“Well, I would say personally, most of the time, the players gave us seven, eight, nine years and left after. The younger generation like [Cesc] Fabregas we lost early and would not have loved to lose him.
The player I think we, internally, it was a mistake to lose was Ashley Cole.
Because he was playing at nine, 10 years old for the club. I knew with Fabregas that taking him away from Barcelona, at some stage he’d want to go back to Barcelona.
But Ashley Cole came out of the club. I think it was a misunderstanding over a few thousand pounds.
At the time, we spoke about [Roman] Abramovich when he came into the game, Ashley Cole is one of the few players who developed even more and continued to develop when he left.”
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