Is it only me who is intensely irritated by the behaviour of Ashley Cole? As an Arsenal fan I am dismayed to read that manager Arsene Wenger wants this spoilt brat of a player to stay with the Gunners. Personally I would not allow him the privilege of wearing the famous red and white shirt again. He is no longer worthy of it.
Superb left-back he may be, but the team really doesn't need players with his attitude and "integrity." What warped parallel universe does Cole inhabit? When contract negotiations were not going exactly the way he wanted (in other words, with Arsenal not immediately capitulating to his demands), he was only too willing to attend a clandestine and unauthorised meeting with one of their biggest rivals, Chelsea, to see how much they would offer him instead. And having been caught out and obliged to accept the consequences of his actions - a fine for breaking the terms of his contract - he bleats and squeals about the injustice of it all and, with no hint of irony, accuses the Gunners of disloyalty.
In a breathtaking application of double standards, Cole (or at least his hired pen) wrote: "Arsenal hung me out to dry, using me as a scapegoat to get back at Chelsea. The board 'rewarded' me with an insult and threw years of loyalty back in my face. I'll reveal the shattering truth about who fed me to the sharks. It changed my view forever on the club I regarded as family."
Pass me the sick bucket. What exactly were those "years of loyalty" all about? Arsenal investing a lot of time, money and effort into nurturing and developing his talent to the point where he could earn obscene amounts of money for doing something he loves. Such heartless, shameless exploitation by the Gunners.
Like so many of his ilk these days, Cole appears to be motivated not by sport, or the team ethic, or his twisted view of loyalty, but by simple greed. (That and the spurious "celebrity" that attaches to some footballers and their requisite trophy wives).
Thus we are treated to the noxious hypocrisy of Cole, just a few months after complaining bitterly about media intrusion into his private life when the tabloids ran thinly disguised, scurrilous and, it transpired, unfounded stories about his sexuality, selling exclusive rights to his wedding for a million pounds to OK! magazine and then coincidentally doing another lucrative deal with one of those same tabloids to sensationalise and serialise his wittily-titled "autobiography," 'My Defence'.
The publicity for the serialisation of this magnus opus has consisted of anti-Arsenal invective designed to portray Cole as some poor innocent victim, while making him, his publishers, ghost-writers, agents and other assorted hangers-on even wealthier.
No doubt in Cole's view of the world we as Arsenal fans are expected to rush out and buy these insubstantial and self-serving musings of a very fortunate 25-year-old, and presumably also to cheer loudly the next time we see him in the Arsenal strip.
Well, I've had enough. I'm sick of him, his self-justifying refusal to accept blame or responsibility for his disloyalty, his greed, the circus of his "celebrity wedding", the whole deal. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and concede that most of his poor judgement stems from the advice of others who should know better but who see a buck in it for themselves; but that is not to excuse him.
People like me have poured our souls into supporting Arsenal over a long, long time. We understand that the club always has been and always will be bigger than any individual. We would give our right arms for the talent and the opportunity to wear the shirt, just once; we do not expect those who DO wear it to treat it, and us, with such disrespect. If Cole, or anyone else, does not want to play for Arsenal, show them the door quickly and let's move on. There are plenty who do.
And let Cole find out if the grass really is greener on the other side of the street. Most who've left Arsenal in the past have realised that it isn't.