Should we have cashed in on Cole and Drogba last summer?

[Tomo 21,681]

Morning all, does any one remember last summer when Drogba and Ash were supposedly wanted by Real Madrid and Manchester City respectively for £20m and £29m respectively, not sure about the truth with the Drogba one but the interest in Cole by Jose was without doubt genuine.

Ill start with Cole, he was outstanding in the double winning season and came back from injury in the final 3 games to help us steamroller our way to the double, but the opening couple of months aside he was pretty average last season and i sadly believe the only way is down for him now.

I remember saying at the time of Madrids interest to my mate, while Cole is the best LB in the world but £29m for a left back approaching 30, we should have took the money and ran, made Yuri our left back and spent that money on a creative midfielder or someone we need. Looking back it would have hardly been a disaster had we done it now.

Drogba was the same in my book, 2009/2010 was his best season yet, 37 goals without being the first choice penalty taker and being away at the ACON for a month says it all, but the chances of him repeating that again were unlikely and at the time he was 32 and a £20m offer for him at that age should have been accepted and that money would have gone some way to helping us fund for a young and hungry forward.

While Didier is and always will be a Chelsea legend sometimes you just need to realise when the right time to let players go is. Although the unfortunate malaria incident hardly helped his course he looked a shadow of the player from 2009/2010 even before he was worringly sticken by the illness.

I think the stumbling block to those happening was Carlo and even me as a massive Carlo fan would admit he does over rely on expierence, has we had Andre at that moment i personally believe it would have been goodbye, thanks for everything and good luck. £49m we could have had and now we will be lucky to get £20m.

So question to my fellow blue fan's, do you aswell as me believe we missed a trick not moving these two lads on last summer? had we did they would always be remembered as the players that helped us storm to the double no matter what, a bit like Ballack, bar the end of 07/08 and the end of the double season he never really shown top form for us but its the way he helped us to the double is how we remember him today, the same would have been the case for Drogba and Ash.

As ive said Drogba will always be a legend for us and Ash will always be remembered for the way he helped us to the double, but Manchester United are the kings of letting players go at the right time and i personally believe we really missed a trick not moving these guys on when we got these offers (if in City and Drogba's case).

what's your view?

[Kieran. 6,317]

I agree we should have sold Cole. 29m is a great deal for LB with his best years behind him. If you asked me this last year, I would have said sell Cole but keep Drogba. But now, I think we should have sold both.

[dodojojo 510]

If RM really did offer 29M, then yes for Cole. That's an amazing offer for a 29/30 year old LB.

If I'm a Man U acolyte, then it's yes for both. They really do know when to let players go as much as I hate their success.

[francozola 2,040]

Drogba - yep, should have cashed in without a question.

Ash - I would have been okay with either. 29m if true is a great offer but we would have needed to replace him. Zhirkov is/was ok, nothing special. Bertrand/PVA were not ready to become our no.1 LB.

[Blue Armour 4,165]

Morning all, oes any one remember last summer when Drogba and Ash were supposedly wanted by Real Madrid and Manchester City respectively for £20m and £29m respectively, not sure about the truth with the Drogba one but the interest in Cole by Jose was without doubt genuine.

Ill start with Cole, he was outstanding in the double winning season and came back from injury in the final 3 games to help us steamroller our way to the double, but the opening couple of months aside he was pretty average last season and i sadly believe the only way is down for him now.

I remember saying at the time of Madrids interest to my mate, while Cole is the best LB in the world but £29m for a left back approaching 30, we should have took the money and ran, made Yuri our left back and spent that money on a creative midfielder or someone we need. Looking back it would have hardly been a disaster had we done it now.

Drogba was the same in my book, 2009/2010 was his best season yet, 37 goals without being the first choice penalty taker and being away at the ACON for a month says it all, but the chances of him repeating that again were unlikely and at the time he was 32 and a £20m offer for him at that age should have been accepted and that money would have helped fund for a large chunk to bring in a young and hungry forward.

While Didier is and always will be a Chelsea legend sometimes you just need to realise when the right time to let players go is. Although the unfortunate malaria incident hardly helped his course he looked a shadow of the player from 2009/2010 even before he was worringly sticken by the illness.

I think the stumbling block to those happening was Carlo and even me as a massive Carlo fan would admit he does over rely on expierence, has we had Andre at that moment i personally believe it would have been goodbye, thanks for everything and good luck. £49m we could have had and now we will be lucky to get £20m.

So question to my fellow blue fan's, do you aswell as me believe we missed a trick not moving these two lads on last summer? had we did they would always be remembered as the players that helped us storm to the double no matter what, a bit like Ballack, bar the end of 07/08 and the end of the double season he never really shown top form for us but its the way he helped us to the double is how we remember him today, the same would have been the case for Drogba and Ash.

As ive said Drogba will always be a legend for us and Ash will always be remembered for the way he helped us to the double, but Manchester United are the kings of letting players go at the right time and i personally believe we really missed a trick not moving these guys on when we got these offers (if in City and Drogba's case).

what's your view?

Sorry but it just seems easy looking at things in hindsight...

After a double winning season who in their right mind would sell the players that stole the show?

Plus with mass exodus of experienced players (Ballack, Deco ,Carvalho ,Joe Cole and Belleti) from the club, no one would have wanted to add Cole and Drogba to that list.

[Beast 85]

29M for a 29 year old Cole = 20M for a 22 year old Coentrao

20M for a 32 year old Drogba = 18M for a 17 year old Lukaku

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Sorry but it just seems easy looking at things in hindsight...

After a double winning season who in their right mind would sell the players that stole the show?

Plus with mass exodus of experienced players (Ballack, Deco ,Carvalho ,Joe Cole and Belleti) from the club, no one would have wanted to add Cole and Drogba to that list.

I could not agree more.

This is why I hate the concept of hindsight.

At the time, the two of them were coming in off of their greatest seasons yet in their careers - why sell them?

However we should have cut our losses with Essien at that point.

[Spike 12,049]

Well, hindsight is a bitch.

[zolayes 14,489]

if we had seen the future ...we would have sold Lampard before injury .. Essien same ... not bought Torres ,,,

such an easy game this

[Madmax 9,219]

Already been said, hindsight eh?

[Kojo 4,676]

We can cope without Ashley, and 29 million is a lot, appearently Milan offered 30 million for Essien, i love Michael but for that price and now that he's just had his injury i only wish we did sell him just before then, that's if Milan did bid for him of course... Drogba for me is too hard to let go, it would be the same for Lampard, even though i want Lampard dropped from first team so badly, i doubt i could ever see him leave or retire, even though i know it's for the best.

I think our problem is, is that we don't sell players when they get out of their primes, such as Barca with Ronaldinho, Arsenal with Henry and Vierra and there are more but i just can't think right now. Some of these players should of been sold by now, however i do think it was right to let go of Ballack, i heard he hasn't done much at Laverkusen?. But this season yes we should of let go of the likes of Drogba, to make some more space, Malouda and Anelka this is there final season for definite, and i'll be kinda sad when i see Anelka go, always was one of my favourite Chelsea players here no matter how many times i do get angry with him. Lampard wont leave he said that, so he will just retire, i have no problem with Frank, he is a useful player but it's stupid how he's starting all these games for us. We just don't seem to be selling much lol, and you would think that's weird since it's our worst season ever under Abramovich.

[Kojo 4,676]

... not bought Torres ,,,

I have a feeling if we had not of bought Torres, we would of had Aguero

[Rubber bullets 1,183]

We should of sould Drogba this season when his value was up, but nope we give him a contract extention.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Ignoring the obvious hindsight remarks..

I agree we should've sold Drogba. Not Cole though.

[Fulham Broadway 16,393]

No way we should of sold him (Drogba) -and he will impress again this season.

Sell the best LB in the world ? -ridiculous - it's not as if Abramovich or the club need the money

[lionsden 4,689]

Don't you know the operations of this club is based on sentimental values. . .even Bruce Buck alluded to it. We love to retain our old players/core of JM's team like a treasure in a museum.

The problem is players, unlike treasures, depreciate in value and quality overtime.

[Liquidator 5,176]

When you look at the context it is very easy for us to say what we should have done a year down the line. Of course we can look back now and see that Drogba and Cole both had very average seasons in 2010/11 but we did not know that they would be like this. If we had spoken about this after the 2009/10 season then I doubt that too many people would have wanted them to go because we would not assume that we would have such an average season after such a good season

[Blue Armour 4,165]

Don't you know the operations of this club is based on sentimental values. . ..

Not when it comes to managers apparently....