Former England defender Ashley Cole has joined Derby until the end of the season.<\/p>\n
The 107-cap left-back has linked up with ex-Chelsea team-mate and current Rams boss Frank Lampard at the iPro Stadium.<\/p>\n
Cole was a free agent after his recent departure from LA Galaxy, with manager Lampard confident the 38-year-old will boost Derby’s promotion drive.<\/p>\n
Lampard said: “I’m delighted that we’ve been able to secure Ashley’s services for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
“He’s a fantastic player, a quality left-back, and he also brings great experience to the dressing room.<\/p>\n
“I know him very well from our time together at Chelsea, and with England, and I also know what he can bring to the group and the influence he will have.<\/p>\n
“Ashley is in good shape, which doesn’t surprise me because he’s an excellent professional, and he will compete for a place in the side like every other player here.<\/p>\n
“I’ve made my feelings known over the last couple of days just how highly I think of Ashley and I have no doubt whatsoever he will be a positive addition to our squad.”<\/p>\n
Cole told RamsTV: “I had a conversation with Frank, maybe a month, two months ago. (It was) general chitchat about how good the team is playing. He said ‘Would you be interested in coming here?’<\/p>\n
“For me it was a no-brainer. Of course I kept in touch with Lamps, saw how well the team has been playing and followed Derby since he got here.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a no-brainer to come here and get involved in this great environment. Hopefully we can push for promotion [to the Premier League].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former England defender Ashley Cole has joined Derby until the end of the season. The 107-cap left-back has linked up with ex-Chelsea team-mate and current Rams boss Frank Lampard at the iPro Stadium. Cole was a free agent after his recent departure from LA Galaxy, with manager Lampard confident the 38-year-old will boost Derby’s promotion…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}