Joe Cole still harbours England hopes

 
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Ken Dyer19 August 2013

Joe Cole has been involved in three World Cups with England and has not given up on making it four in a row.

Cole, 31, made the best possible start to the season by scoring West Ham’s 13 minute opening goal against newly-promoted Cardiff and being named man-of-the-match.

Happy to be back where he began his playing career, Cole feels he can still add to his 56 senior caps if he continues to perform well in the Premier League this season.

“Considering the reducing numbers of English players in the Premier League, anyone born in this country will have one eye on breaking into our international squad”, he said.

“I’ve been to three World Cups and I would love to go to another but first and foremost it’s a case of playing well here at West Ham.

“The 18 months at Liverpool when I didn’t play much was obviously a bad time in my career but when I did play I thought I did OK.

“Then I had a good season in France and even my final season at Chelsea when I was coming back from a big knee injury, I felt I had an effect.

“I’m only 31, I’m fully fit and I think I can still do a job but we’ll just see what happens.”

Cole, who intends to begin taking his coaching badges, is also passionate about staying in football when he does finally retire.

“I’m passionate about my football and especially youth football in this country”, he said.

“I want to play on as long as I can and Ryan Giggs is the benchmark but certainly long-term I would love to get involved in the development of young players”.

Competition for wide positions in Sam Allardyce’s team has increased following last week’s signing of Stewart Downing from Liverpool but Cole believes that is a positive.

“Stewart is a good signing for us”, he said. “In world football these days everyone gets rotated in the wide positions apart from probable Cristiano Ronaldo.

“We have four good players in those wide positions now with Matt Jarvis, Stewart and Ricardo Vaz Te as well as myself and we all provide something different.”

Captain Kevin Nolan scored West Ham’s other goal in the 76 minute and Cole said: “We want to be better than last year in all aspects, the points we get, the position in which we finish and the number of goals we score and concede. W can also have a ‘go’ at the cups as well.

“The gaffer is doing a great job in the three seasons he‘s been here. If you look at what he’s achieved, whenever he’s left a club they’ve capitulated”.

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