Saturday, June 03, 2017
English International Cole Released By Persib
It's hardly a surprise. Persib have finally said they are going to release former England international Carlton Cole after he has failed to make an impression with the West Java side. It was always one of the stranger signings, as I mentioned in this article, he arrived injured and offered nothing different really to Sergio van Dijk who was already on the books.
His time in Bandung has been marred by controversy with the club management questioning his attitude at times. There was also an allegation he was unwilling to train on an artificial surface. In addition there was an online spat with some Persib fans when he asked for people to follow his Instagram account. Fans responded by telling him to produce the goods on the field first before they started following him. He didn't like that and seemed to question their support for the club. Bad move Carlton! He even responded to my suggestion that if he had come to Indonesia for a holiday he had joined the wrong club by saying he was a professional footballer who had at and been successful at the highest levels. Those words failed to impress Persib fans who said they didn't care what he had done in the past, only what he did on the pitch in the blue shirt for them.
Some foreign players come and make a massive impression on the notoriously hard to please Persib support. Some players arrive, fail to impress, work their socks off and turn the fans around. Others come and fail to make any kind of impression at all and Cole falls into that category. At Persib his England caps counted for nothing.
Cole has become a bit of a fall guy for Persib's start to the season, four draws and one loss(!), which is unfair when you consider he has only managed about 100 minutes playing time. When he arrived he said he hoped to get between 10 and 20 goals. He got one yellow card.
Being released even before the transfer window is upon us is a sad way to end his time in Indonesia. but the truth is Persib were the wrong club at the wrong time.
UPDATE - it seems Cole has been given another chance by the club following a top level meeting last night. Either play him or release him... There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye me feels!
UPDATE - it seems Cole has been given another chance by the club following a top level meeting last night. Either play him or release him... There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye me feels!
# posted by Me @ 5:44 AM 
