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Kop King Cole?
England: Kop King Cole?
Marc Fox
There's a refreshing feel to Joe Cole's decision to swap champions Chelsea for Liverpool against the omnipotent backdrop of spiralling player wages and England's diminishing international influence.
After months of being painted as another greedy Premier League footballer who couldn’t bear leaving the capital, Cole has shunned the potentially bigger pay packets at London clubs Arsenal and Tottenham - not to mention the chance of imminent Champions League football - for a good old-fashioned regular starting place at Liverpool.
While the pedigree of the 18-time champions and the parochialism of the support are clearly not in question, the simple facts ahead of the forthcoming season are that Liverpool under new boss Roy Hodgson will be the first English team back in competitive action in the Europa League qualifiers on July 29.
A place in the Europa League and only a glimmer of seriously battling for the top four given the uncertainty over Fernando Torres' continued involvement would hardly seem comparable to semi-regular game-time at Chelsea on the surface.
But you get the feeling Fabio Capello might just have done the unwitting Hodgson a huge favour in South Africa.
Cole, who only played his way into reckoning for Capello's 23 touring party on the back of a spirited series of displays in the World Cup warm-up games, was gifted just 44 minutes in England's four matches - all from the substitute's bench.
This latest snub by a foreign coach might have been the final nail for Cole, who at 28 won three Premier League medals and two FA Cups at Chelsea but a quarter of his appearances arrived from the bench.
While the former West Ham junior's silverware-to-starts ratio might be among the game's highest, his personal satisfaction was clearly heading in the opposite direction.
Moreover, Cole has accumulated 56 caps for England without ever establishing himself a seasoned regular while his dissatisfaction with the 2010 World Cup performances of the national side were evident.
Cole's young enough to still be available for Brazil 2014 (his four-year deal with Liverpool will take him neatly up to the next World Cup) and Capello's admittance that he needs greater flexibility in his starting side could see a rejuvenated Cole forge a regular place in his preferred position - behind the striker(s).
Reading between the lines that's where Hodgson is eyeing playing Cole.
The veteran manager is marked out for his tactician flexibility and indeed played with a lone striker at Fulham, last season's Europa League finalists, during their unprecedented success over the past two years with Zoltan Gera floating in behind.
Hodgson might even opt to play captain Steven Gerrard and Cole behind a front striker, a mouth-watering prospect for Liverpool supporters and not a bad one for England fans.
© Marc Fox & Soccerphile.com
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