Hutton: Cole Didn't Deserve A Red Card

[Alan]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... 942889.ece

Fair play to him for coming out and saying it. Watching the tackle again it does appear Cole goes for the ball but is late and unfortunately makes a connection with his shin.

Of course, as its a Chelsea player and A.Cole it SHOULD have been a red card and Chelsea are destroying football with their intimidation of referees etc. etc.

[canbeas]

it was a ridiculous tackle. he might have been late for the ball, but it doesn't matter. it's still a red card.

[Lofty]

Well if Hutton says it wasn't a sending off offence now, what's the odds that in the future (next season assuming the two of them end up playing against for opposing teams), that when Hutton clatters A. Cole, he'll turn round and say "no of course I wasn't getting my own back .. I said all along it was rigtht he wasn't sent off ... "

[The Brit]

a cole is still an a hole to me, but all the hype on sky sports today and in the press is a tad ott...the guy was an idiot, it was a bad tackle, but that's it...me thinks cos of his shagging exploits and the fact he plays for chelsea is the reason behind the witchhunt here...i'm also fed up with people always having a got at chelsea players hounding the ref...it maybe wrong, but i see other clubs do it all the time without the same hysteria...spurs players and the bench were up in arms last night...i remember for mikel's sending off at old trafford that we got fined for not controlling our players and yet you see united players running to the ref first to demand he get sent off

[loz]

For me the big issue is Cole's behaviour. The tackle was bad not terrible, the crowding around the ref was bad but no worse than many other similar happenings.

But Cole turning his back on Riley to say 'Here is my number, just get on with it' smacked of arrogance and if Riley had had any balls Cole would have, and should have, walked there and then.

He was a disgrace last night. I don't care what other players, at other clubs, have done, none of that makes things relative. All I care about is what our players do and last night Ashley Cole humiliated himself and humiliated the club. Shame on him and shame on Avram Grant for not publically criticising him for it. Yes Ferguson wouldn't have criticised a Utd player for it, yes Wenger wouldn't have criticised an Arsenal player for doing it and Jose wouldn't have criticised a Chelsea player for doing it either however, for me, each and every one of them would merit criticism for not doing so.

Many will say, and maybe rightly so, that standing by your players stoically irrespective of the level of adversity, is a sign of a winner and a champion and they may well be right, personally I prefer a loser with decency above a winner with no honour.

If I had my way Cole would never pull on a Chelsea jersey again.

[mad_mac]

Cole acted like a petulant child toward Riley and should have got his marching orders for that alone.

Hutton, if this is a genuine statement, then the fact he went to Spuds makes it even worse. I certainly think Hutton could have been a better option for us than say, Belletti. If, as Lofty thinks, this is merely and excuse for him to batter Cole next year; then that is sinister and cold!

[Guest]

For me the big issue is Cole's behaviour. The tackle was bad not terrible, the crowding around the ref was bad but no worse than many other similar happenings.

But Cole turning his back on Riley to say 'Here is my number, just get on with it' smacked of arrogance and if Riley had had any balls Cole would have, and should have, walked there and then.

He was a disgrace last night. I don't care what other players, at other clubs, have done, none of that makes things relative. All I care about is what our players do and last night Ashley Cole humiliated himself and humiliated the club. Shame on him and shame on Avram Grant for not publically criticising him for it. Yes Ferguson wouldn't have criticised a Utd player for it, yes Wenger wouldn't have criticised an Arsenal player for doing it and Jose wouldn't have criticised a Chelsea player for doing it either however, for me, each and every one of them would merit criticism for not doing so.

Many will say, and maybe rightly so, that standing by your players stoically irrespective of the level of adversity, is a sign of a winner and a champion and they may well be right, personally I prefer a loser with decency above a winner with no honour.

If I had my way Cole would never pull on a Chelsea jersey again.

I agree right up to the last line which I think goes a bit far...

[Dorset]

There is no doubt about it, Cole let himself and the club down, but his attitude, excessive as it was, is not dissimilar to that of most players in the modern game, when it comes to having a go at authority - it’s just that the Media were given an opportunity to deliver a triple whammy on their favourite Chelsea whipping boy and they took it gleefully. His lack of respect, tackle (of quickly alleged Taylor magnitude) and diva-esque life style were all symptomatic of the disease that the Media believes is inherent in most of our club’s players, whilst they at the same time turn a blind eye to similar traits in players from the other three in the Big Four.

Of course, some of ours are exempted as well - Joe [probably due to his Hammers background] can have a rant at the assistant linesmen for a poor decision without rebuke - but he is in the minority amongst the Chelsea players, whereas we all know the leeway Rooney gets when he opens his mouth and Gerrard gets when he dives, not forgetting too the niggling wind up merchant that is Fabregas when his team is losing.

Flavour of the month for the Media has been the Taylor tackle, there have been many since that one that have been just as bad without the disastrous consequences, but the first [in appearance] by a Chelsea player is pounced upon and Ashley was stupid enough to overreact, thereby compounding his error. Personally, I thought Essien would open our ‘disgrace’ account, but he was the subject of a Zokora tackle [of equal menace and intent] which the Media has, naturally, chosen to ignore. They have also ignored Huddlestone’s scandalous dive to win a penalty and had this been, say, a Robben or a Drogba, we would never have heard the last of it.

All of this is a prelude to Super Sunday, designed to paint Chelsea in an unflattering light, and the obvious motive is to mark the referees cards early in the piece. Cole has loads of Arsenal ‘previous’ and was a sitting duck for pre match discredit. We’ve yet to find out how well he can play against his old team, but we do know he can mark Ronaldo out of a game on a consistent basis. So do the Media because their Golden Boy from Portugal has yet to score against us, therefore we are still the bad boys, we still do bad, bad things and Ashley is the proof of it. More fool him for his actions on Wednesday and more fool the general public, if they believe only blue shirted players are the bad boys of this run-in of Premiership games.

[loz]

Dorset,

The whole hypocrisy issue is clear as day and has reached such farcical proportions that even non Chelsea fans are pointing it out now. Granted most of the ones I have heard say that are actually North of the Border (and I don't mean the Watford Gap) and are thereore further removed from showing bias towards an English club.

I hope Bridge plays against Arsenal as I don't fancy Cole's chances of lasting the 90 minutes without seeing red. He will be targeted by the Arsenal players, by the samall number of away fans and quite possibly by the ref a well. Fair or unfair that is the reality and he has brought most of it on himself.

However I go back to my previous point and that is that I am personally not that fussed about how Cole compares with other players at other clubs (or how we as a club in general compare with other clubs) . I would just like to see us improve our discipline and improve it considerably. A lot less antics like Ashely Cole's, a lot less surrounding the ref by the likes of Drogba and JT and a lot less playing dead at minor injuries.

I would like to see a lot less of these things across football in general but my focus is obviously on us.

[Lofty]

I've stated elsewhere I won't defend Ashley Cole, and I won't here. But as you say, his tackle was no worse than any number of others. And yet yesterday we hear that it's Chelsea who are bad for football, that this is symptomatic of the way things are at Chelsea. I forget the name of the commentator, but I do remember the remark that the Zakora tackle was clearly an attempt to go for the ball and that there was no intent. And that's the last anyone heard of it. Of course, a similar tackle by Michael Essien would have been headline news all week.

It's even worse than that. It's so bad in fact, that the youth team where even criticised for rubbing the Villa players noses in it after we beat them. Apparently their celebrations showed disrespect and should have been more muted .. because all they'd done was got to a Cup Final. This followed a call by some idiot whiny Villa fan who levelled all the accusations of diving and imaginary yellow card waving deemed to be endemic at Stamford Bridge at the youth team, accusations that were gleefully pounced upon by the ginger tosser and the Crystal Palace reject.

f**k 'em all.