One former Chelsea player admitted that his ego was bruised when he left the club, but he never wanted to leave.

You often hear about these kinds of stories about players having regrets about leaving their club, especially when Chelsea are involved.

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Mostly, Chelsea has been a great club to be at as a player and we have had a lot of success, so medals have been won and trophies have been lifted.

Fan favourite Joe Cole though, admits that he didn’t want to leave Chelsea when his time came, and he also says it bruised his ego a bit.

Cole on leaving Chelsea

Speaking on The High Performance Podcast this week, Cole spoke on the time Chelsea were going to hand him a new contract but then paused negotiations due to a long term injury he had:

He recalls: “Rightly so, they pulled back. But again, looking back now, they never contacted me. Then I got back from the injury, took me 11 months and I had about eight or nine months left on my contract.

“But again, like that little bit of petulance in me, I was like, well, where were you when I was injured? Do you know what I mean? I was like, I was like, hold on, let me just, and the negotiations never really got going from that.

“I think there was partly my ego was bruised because I didn’t, I thought to myself, I should have got the contract offer 18 months ago. And then they didn’t offer it to me. So there was a little bit of that going on.”

“Then after about four, five, six months, it goes into the season, I’m starting to think, this might be my last six months. Never really wanted to go. But again, you know, if you know now and know then, I’d have gone back to the table and taken maybe a cut price because I was happy, you know what I mean?”