The disrespect for Andy Cole

Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
He wasn't the most agreeable of personalities by all accounts. Remember him being offended by people not referring to him as 'Andrew' and throwing his toys out the pram.
 
The feck has Glenn Hoddle got to do with it? I remember it cos he frustrated the hell out of me.
Unless you've done a statistical breakdown of his missed chances and cross referenced it against all the other top strikers at the time then it's a bunch of BS influenced by what Hoddle said. Every striker misses chances. Saying that 'he's not as clinical as Romario' is not the same as the Hoddle crap that he needs 8 chances to score a goal. Every striker needs multiple chances to score a goal. One wonders how he managed to become the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (2nd at time of retirement) with all the thousands of chances he was supposedly missing.
 
He also never took penalties, which makes his haul of goals all the more impressive. Let's be honest, it suited the agenda of rival fans to say he wasn't that good.
 
Unless you've done a statistical breakdown of his missed chances and cross referenced it against all the other top strikers at the time then it's a bunch of BS influenced by what Hoddle said. Every striker misses chances. Saying that 'he's not as clinical as Romario' is not the same as the Hoddle crap that he needs 8 chances to score a goal. Every striker needs multiple chances to score a goal. One wonders how he managed to become the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (2nd at time of retirement) with all the thousands of chances he was supposedly missing.

He became the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (if that's true) by playing for 7 years in the most prolific team in PL history, in his and our prime. If he was more clinical he'd have done much better. I don't care what Hoddle says, guy is a clown. If you ever watched Cole you'd know his best trait was to give the ball to Yorke when he could, a much better player.
 
Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
He wasn't the most agreeable of personalities by all accounts. Remember him being offended by people not referring to him as 'Andrew' and throwing his toys out the pram.

...Which year did Cole score 40+ goals?
 
Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
He wasn't the most agreeable of personalities by all accounts. Remember him being offended by people not referring to him as 'Andrew' and throwing his toys out the pram.

In his first season, he scored 12 in 18 league games, I would hardly call that a disaster - the next season he only scored 11 in 34.

His time with us was blighted at the start with injuries but once he got fully fit, and especially playing alongside Yorke, he was one of the best strikers in the world.
 
Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
He wasn't the most agreeable of personalities by all accounts. Remember him being offended by people not referring to him as 'Andrew' and throwing his toys out the pram.

Cole scored 12 in 18 league games in his first half season with us. He never came close to scoring 40+ goals in a United season?
 
You remember that because Glenn Hoddle told you to remember that. It's objectively nonsense.
Exactly, so many people repeat this line as if he had some terrible conversion rate. If it was true and he didn't miss those 5 chances for every goal that they say he did then he'd have nearly 1000 goals in the PL.
It's such a ridiculous thing to say about a guy who's near the top of the all time list
 
Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
Aye. If we look at the peak of his career in two-season chunks:

93-95 Newcastle - ruthless
95-97 United - quite wasteful and low on confidence
97-99 United - clinical and improved all-round player

He had that dip in the middle, just at the point he moved to the biggest club in the country, which affected his standing. It was probably emphasised more because Cantona had been such an outstanding finisher in Cole's early days at Old Trafford, while elsewhere in the league Shearer and Fowler were on fire and looked like they couldn't miss.
 
Was one of my favourite players growing up. Between around 97 and 00 he was just excellence, often had a cracker of a goal up his sleeve to. Peak andy would be a welcome addition to this team

Probably what goes against him when people talk about best PL strikers is that it never really happened with England. Still anybody unfamiliar i strongly recommend some Cole videos on YouTube. A joy
 
Unless you've done a statistical breakdown of his missed chances and cross referenced it against all the other top strikers at the time then it's a bunch of BS influenced by what Hoddle said. Every striker misses chances. Saying that 'he's not as clinical as Romario' is not the same as the Hoddle crap that he needs 8 chances to score a goal. Every striker needs multiple chances to score a goal. One wonders how he managed to become the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (2nd at time of retirement) with all the thousands of chances he was supposedly missing.

Exactly if he also scored all those "missed" chances he'd have over 400 pl goals
 
Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
He wasn't the most agreeable of personalities by all accounts. Remember him being offended by people not referring to him as 'Andrew' and throwing his toys out the pram.
Except it was debunked multiple times over the years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndic...r-am-clips-is-it-andy-or-andrew-cole.amp.html

He also said that cos he was quiet he got labelled surly.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...manchester-united-interview-kidney-transplant
 
Was one of my favourite players growing up. Between around 97 and 00 he was just excellence, often had a cracker of a goal up his sleeve to. Peak andy would be a welcome addition to this team

Probably what goes against him when people talk about best PL strikers is that it never really happened with England. Still anybody unfamiliar i strongly recommend some Cole videos on YouTube. A joy
The England thing is definitely a problem but it applies to a lot of the other top strikers at the time that were not given the same opportunity Shearer was.
 
Third highes prem goalscorer and 12th most assists too.

Cole scored 12 in 18 league games in his first half season with us. He never came close to scoring 40+ goals in a United season?
He scored 12, but got 5 v Ipswich in the 9-0. It did take him a bit of time to get going, but the partnership with Yorke was just so good, eg the goals v Barca in 99.
 
Was one of my favourite players growing up. Between around 97 and 00 he was just excellence, often had a cracker of a goal up his sleeve to. Peak andy would be a welcome addition to this team

Probably what goes against him when people talk about best PL strikers is that it never really happened with England. Still anybody unfamiliar i strongly recommend some Cole videos on YouTube. A joy

He was incredibly unlucky that he played in an era where England had an incredible pool of strikers to choose from.
Shearer, Sheringham, Les Ferdinand, Fowler, Owen, Ian Wright just off the top of my head.

He'd comfortably be second choice after Kane if he were playing today!
 
4th highest PL goalscorer all time. Only scored one penalty so if you do it by non penalty goals, he is still has the second highest total and is less than 20 goals behind Shearer. If he was missing bucketloads of chances then how did he still end up with more goals than anyone else besides Shearer?
 
I'm just saying he didn't play much for England cos of the amount of competition and that stands against him in making lists of great strikers if you're not making your national team.

I think Hoddle didn't bring him to France 98 cos Sheringham and Ferdinand offered something different and Cole was more similar to Owen and Shearer.

I know he's numbers are great but I remember finding him frustrating to watch at times.

Anyway he had a great career and won more than the other England strikers put together.

The competition you listed most of them played much less than he did.

That's also bs.

It was well known Sheringham and Cole didn't get along. Had been a thing since Cole replaced Sheringham in an England match in 95. Cole was walking onto the pitch, first ever game for his country, Sheringham totally blanked him, didn't shake his hand or even acknowledge he was coming on. Cole felt humiliated in front of all the thousands of people watching, should have been a huge moment in an England shirt, but Sheringham ruined it by doing that and he hated him for it ever since. Still does apparently.

Hoddle didn’t bring him to France because he wanted Sheringham in the squad and he knew they didn't get along, so he made up a bullshit excuse and brought Ferdinand instead. He could have brought Dublin or Sutton for something different because they were actually in form that season. Might have made some sense, but he brought a guy who scored about 5 or 6 league goals and then said Cole needed 7 or 8 chances to score.
 
There weren't as many international fixtures at the time, we had a cast iron first choice striker in Shearer and a raft of good forwards just begind him. You could argue several strikers from that era didn't earn enough caps as they all took games off each other fighting for scraps behind Shearer.

Loved Cole though, forward like him now would transform our team.
 
He became the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (if that's true) by playing for 7 years in the most prolific team in PL history, in his and our prime. If he was more clinical he'd have done much better. I don't care what Hoddle says, guy is a clown. If you ever watched Cole you'd know his best trait was to give the ball to Yorke when he could, a much better player.
Most prolific in prem history? How did you work that out? Blackburn outscored us in 1993, Newcastle outscored us in 94, Blackburn outscored us in 1995 (cole played half). We were leading scorers in 1996, 97, 98, 99, 2000. interesting to see his conversion rate.
 
There weren't as many international fixtures at the time, we had a cast iron first choice striker in Shearer and a raft of good forwards just begind him. You could argue several strikers from that era didn't earn enough caps as they all took games off each other fighting for scraps behind Shearer.

Loved Cole though, forward like him now would transform our team.
I'll say it again. Shearer went 10 games without scoring and kept his place. If the process was fair, other guys would have got more opportunities.
 
He became the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (if that's true) by playing for 7 years in the most prolific team in PL history, in his and our prime. If he was more clinical he'd have done much better. I don't care what Hoddle says, guy is a clown. If you ever watched Cole you'd know his best trait was to give the ball to Yorke when he could, a much better player.
This is an asinine post
 
He became the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (if that's true)
Why let fact get in the way of an opinion? Also sits 13th for Premier League assists. Yorke is nowhere to be seen on both lists.
 
He was decent, any side would of been happy to have him I'm sure, but he was hardly a top striker that teams build around. Yorke was the talisman. I certainly wouldn't have him in a top 10 list.

I just remember Cole as needing at least 5 chances to finally find the back of the net, and he got fed a lot of good chances. Had his best years at Newcastle before coming to us.
As a matter of interest, how old were you when we signed Cole in 1994/95?
 
Unless you've done a statistical breakdown of his missed chances and cross referenced it against all the other top strikers at the time then it's a bunch of BS influenced by what Hoddle said. Every striker misses chances. Saying that 'he's not as clinical as Romario' is not the same as the Hoddle crap that he needs 8 chances to score a goal. Every striker needs multiple chances to score a goal. One wonders how he managed to become the 4th most prolific striker in PL history (2nd at time of retirement) with all the thousands of chances he was supposedly missing.

People remember it more because he missed some big chances, West Ham final day, Real Madrid there's probably a few others.

Hoddle also said that Michael Owen wasn't a natural goalscorer.
 
People remember it more because he missed some big chances, West Ham final day, Real Madrid there's probably a few others.

Hoddle also said that Michael Owen wasn't a natural goalscorer.
Because Hoddle says dumb things. I do agree though that the last day v West Ham is something that sticks in the memory so that's fair. He gained redemption in following seasons but I think that first year there was a lot of pressure on him because of the transfer fee. Plus a lot of prolific strikers went to United and didn't match their typical numbers prior to him, it was something of a theme going way back to people like Birtles and Brazil and then even people like McClair in Fergie's era. It's been a bit of a graveyard for strikers (with some exceptions) so I think all in all, Cole did well.
 
He was incredibly unlucky that he played in an era where England had an incredible pool of strikers to choose from.
Shearer, Sheringham, Les Ferdinand, Fowler, Owen, Ian Wright just off the top of my head.

He'd comfortably be second choice after Kane if he were playing today!

Absolutely. Another England manger might have had him as his main man. I don't mean it as a criticism of Cole, just something that has probably diminished his reputation whereas stupidly, even one decent international tournament would have changed all that
 
He did a great interview on Stretford paddock last week talking about the disrespect he got. He's so underrated
 
absolute quality player, still one of my favourites to this day. Criminally underrated player, a lot of it stems from that twat Hoddle and his " 5 chances to score 1 goal" comment. We were so despised in those days, people took notice of any shite spouted and ran with it as gospel.
 
People remember it more because he missed some big chances, West Ham final day, Real Madrid there's probably a few others.

Hoddle also said that Michael Owen wasn't a natural goalscorer.
People remember myths more than reality though. I watched the West Ham match live on TV in 95,and I didn't recall him being at fault. I rewatched it in it's entirity a couple of years back to check my memory and I didn't find it changed my mind at all. Miklosko just played the match of his life and we were missing key players.
 
It was well known Sheringham and Cole didn't get along. Had been a thing since Cole replaced Sheringham in an England match in 95. Cole was walking onto the pitch, first ever game for his country, Sheringham totally blanked him, didn't shake his hand or even acknowledge he was coming on. Cole felt humiliated in front of all the thousands of people watching, should have been a huge moment in an England shirt, but Sheringham ruined it by doing that and he hated him for it ever since. Still does apparently.

Hoddle didn’t bring him to France because he wanted Sheringham in the squad and he knew they didn't get along, so he made up a bullshit excuse and brought Ferdinand instead. He could have brought Dublin or Sutton for something different because they were actually in form that season. Might have made some sense, but he brought a guy who scored about 5 or 6 league goals and then said Cole needed 7 or 8 chances to score.

I can't get my head around this. Surely Hoddle would've seen Cole and Sheringham link up well for United in the 97-98 season, so you'd assume this was enough evidence to put to bed any fears that Cole's hatred towards Sheringham could ruin England's World Cup chances. Or am I missing something?
 
As a matter of interest, how old were you when we signed Cole in 1994/95?

Old enough to be excited about the signing of the biggest prospect in English football at the time. Unfortunately he never quite reached his potential. Good player no doubt, did a job for us, but people trying to compare him to Ruud & Shearer are off their tree. More like Dion Dublin level.
 
People remember myths more than reality though. I watched the West Ham match live on TV in 95,and I didn't recall him being at fault. I rewatched it in it's entirity a couple of years back to check my memory and I didn't find it changed my mind at all. Miklosko just played the match of his life and we were missing key players.
Also fair
 
absolute quality player, still one of my favourites to this day. Criminally underrated player, a lot of it stems from that twat Hoddle and his " 5 chances to score 1 goal" comment. We were so despised in those days, people took notice of any shite spouted and ran with it as gospel.

I don’t remember Hoddle saying that, but my overriding memory of Cole was that he’d miss more than he’d put away. I always used to think if we’d signed Shearer he’d have scored 50 league goals a season. Cole did miss an awful lot of easy chances, no escaping that. And I do rate him, too.
 
He was decent, any side would of been happy to have him I'm sure, but he was hardly a top striker that teams build around. Yorke was the talisman. I certainly wouldn't have him in a top 10 list.

I just remember Cole as needing at least 5 chances to finally find the back of the net, and he got fed a lot of good chances. Had his best years at Newcastle before coming to us.


This is why I hate Hoddle. People actually believed the garbage he talked about Cole.

You only have to look at Cole's stats to know what a load of rubbish that was.

Add to the fact he changed his game when he came to United for the good of his team when certain other formats refused to do so yet still banged in the goals despite not taking penalties

Yes he missed chances the same as every striker yet only his misses were pointed out to suit the agenda

He scored against everyone was prolific against Liverpool and scored she absolute brilliant goals.

My favourite Cole goal though was the Title winner on the list of the treble season against Spurs
 
He was a good player with a good allround game, who was also clearly not as good as a number of his contemporaries at any given time, both for England and in the league.

Don't know if that is underrating him. He was just never among the best, even if his accumulated body of work suggests he could be or ought to be.
 
Cole's first season with us was a disaster; it's to fergie's credit he stuck with him and was repaid with a 40 plus goals the following year.
He wasn't the most agreeable of personalities by all accounts. Remember him being offended by people not referring to him as 'Andrew' and throwing his toys out the pram.

The Andrew thing isn’t true. He’s spoken on it many times in interviews. He didn’t care.

He was also known for being a top bloke. Inside football and out. Keane absolutely loved him and that’s a high bar. The weird media obsession with Sheringham and Cole took on a very racist hue when The Sun and their ilk reported on it. That went everywhere. Ditto Glenn Hoddles comments.

He was just quiet. That’s it. Was a very nice chap when I spent time around him (along with colleagues) at a corporate thing.
 
Old enough to be excited about the signing of the biggest prospect in English football at the time. Unfortunately he never quite reached his potential. Good player no doubt, did a job for us, but people trying to compare him to Ruud & Shearer are off their tree. More like Dion Dublin level.
Old enough to analyse a player's performance in numerous matches, or just to see whether they'd printed his poster in the middle of Shoot magazine?
 
Old enough to be excited about the signing of the biggest prospect in English football at the time. Unfortunately he never quite reached his potential. Good player no doubt, did a job for us, but people trying to compare him to Ruud & Shearer are off their tree. More like Dion Dublin level.

Utterly insane to compare him to Dublin. Insane opinion.
 
Old enough to be excited about the signing of the biggest prospect in English football at the time. Unfortunately he never quite reached his potential. Good player no doubt, did a job for us, but people trying to compare him to Ruud & Shearer are off their tree. More like Dion Dublin level.


289 goals to Dublin's 140 in a similar amount of games despite Cole playing at a higher level and not taking penalties whereas Dublin did but yes totally the same level
 
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