Full-back reveals why he made big decision to join Chelsea after £100k-a-week offer

Ashley Cole says being ‘disrespected’ and ‘shafted’ by Arsenal during contract negotiations and that is why he made the decision to move across London and join bitter rivals CHELSEA.

After coming through Arsenal’s academy, Cole made over 200 first-team appearances for his boyhood club, lifting two Premier League trophies and three FA Cups.

After his acrimonious departure from Arsenal, Cole went on to enjoy even more success at Stamford Bridge, helping the club win another Premier League trophy, four more FA Cups, the Europa League and the Champions League

Arsenal wanted Cole to extend his stay at the club but the defender says he was ‘shafted’ after being offered a less lucrative contract than he was ‘promised’, and he has admitted that he felt ‘disrespected’ by the Gunners and as a result joined the club on a contract worth more than £100,000-a-week.

‘My situation was I knew what I was worth,’ Cole said on That Peter Crouch Podcast. ‘If you don’t want to pay it, no problem.

‘But we did agree to pay it. Everything was agreed and then they pulled the rug [from] under me. They broke their promise – I couldn’t tell you why.

‘It was hard [to leave]. People [don’t] understand the pressure that I was under to leave or to stay.

‘Ultimately I felt disrespected, this is my point of view, I felt disrespected.

‘It is what it is, but sometimes when I speak to fans [and they say], “You left, you hurt me”, I’m like, “Hold up”. People don’t realise that I was the one who got hurt the most.

‘That was my boyhood club, I’d been living the dream. But I got shafted. ‘It wasn’t that I felt I wasn’t getting looked after because I was a young player. I didn’t ask for [Thierry] Henry’s or [Patrick] Vieira’s [wages]. I didn’t want that.

‘I was nothing to do with them. I just knew what I was worth and they broke their promise. I look back and I was bitter. In my head I was going, “You put me through some s***”. And they just went like, “Ash, you deal with it, and it’s nothing to do with us.”

‘I think [former Arsenal vice-chairman] David Dein came out and mentioned something recently. But it took him like 20 years.

‘For 20 years I got abused. But I don’t blame the fans. I understand their frustration. They didn’t know the full facts, they didn’t know the truth.’

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