Honestly I don't think anyone was in for Cole except for Spurs, and Redknapp was running his mouth, trying to make it seem like Cole was the worlds single biggest target and it would be a truly massive coupe if Redknapp the wheeler dealer managed to get him over everyone else.
The only Arsenal official word was someone asked if he thought Cole was good, and Wenger said yes he was, but thats pretty much his standard reply, most managers don't just say "he's not close to worth 90k a week, don't know what the guy is smoking".
Same for Utd, saw entirely nothing outside of Redknapp talking up how wanted Cole was. Spurs were in for him, Liverpool gave a bigger offer and in reality after a single season both teams will likely be in the Europa league long term. Redknapp was also going on about this interest from other clubs pre world cup, again it seems like Cole was just hoping he'd get a great deal after he shone at the world cup.
I'm also not saying the Joe Cole deal is a bad deal, I'm just saying, if both players play for 4 years, he costs more than Benny, if they both get sold after 2 years, who knows, Redknapp might go to Real and spend 30mil on Cole (because he'll sort himself out a nice cut of the deal
![Stick Out Tongue :p :p](/styles/default/xenforo/vbSmilies/Normal/tongue.gif)
) or Cole might go to Cardiff for 50k. Excluding the signing on bonus Cole is marginally more expensive, but 2million, honestly, is nothing these days.
Its just the guys going on about what a truly fantastic deal Cole was, are deluded and thats all I'm saying.
You'll notice I've said the same thing about Chamakh, a free transfer he may have been, but that will mean huge signing bonus and 20-30k a week higher wages than he would normally have got, which means over 4-5 years he would cost probably the same as anyone else.
personally I think free transfers on younger players cost you long term Lets say Benny and Cole were 5 years younger, when it comes to a 10-20% pay rise for their next contract, Benny goes up to 72k a week, Cole would go up to 108k a week, so their next 4 year contracts would be 22.5mil for Cole, and 15mil for Benny.
When you do these daft free transfer, you start off at a massively inflated wage, which will only continue to be a problem. I reckon thats a reason Sol Campbell left, he was probably expecting a decent wage rise on a new contract and Arsenal told him where to stick it(well one of the reasons).