Lille midfielder Joe Cole has said that former club Chelsea should still be under the stewardship of Jose Mourinho and that they made the wrong decision by letting him go.
The 30-year-old is also confident that the Real Madrid boss will achieve the greatest managerial feat should he go on to win La Liga with the Spanish giants.
The midfielder won six trophies under Mourinho at Stamford Bridge before the now 48-year-old left the club in 2007 after just three years at the helm. These included two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, two League Cups and the Community Shield.
Cole is adamant that Mourinho should still be at the London club, telling talkSPORT: “Of course they should have carried on [with Mourinho]. It’s plainly obvious he should still be there.
“He was a big, big influence on my career.
“I remember the first meeting, he got the lads together and said ‘listen guys, you haven’t won anything, you have done nothing in the game, if you stick with me we are going to win this league by April’.
“All the lads were like ‘who is this geezer’? Then we went out to train and the training was blinding, tackles flying in and it was so intense.
“He was just great to play for; you knew where you stood. Looking back I played my best football under him. I won my most trophies under him.
“He used to get on my back so much but I can’t thank him enough for it.
“He saw something in me that maybe I didn’t see in myself. If someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to show them I can do it. That’s why he’s a great manager and he’s a good guy as well.
“He’d long gone before I realised that he’d made such an impact on my football. I appreciate everything he did for me.”
Mourinho’s Real Madrid lead Barcelona by three points at the top of La Liga and Cole believes that the Portuguese will have achieved the greatest ever managerial feat should he go on to win the title.
“If he goes and wins the league, that is the biggest achievement from any manager at any time because that Barcelona team is something else,” he concluded.
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