Carlton Cole has been gushing over ex-Manchester City star Samir Nasri as West Ham reportedly try to sign up the French playmaker.
Nasri, 31, is currently banned from playing football but that hasn’t stopped the Hammers from eyeing up a potential deal, with the view to him playing from January onwards.
BBC Sport reports that Nasri will train with West Ham in a bid to win himself a deal with the Premier League club and despite a lot of criticism, ex-Hammer Cole believes that it will be an inspired piece of business by Manuel Pellegrini.
“I think the manager has a good relationship with him,” Cole told Sky Sports, as quoted via their live transfer blog on Monday [09:29am]. “We know his class, he’s a classy player.
“He will bring something different to the squad and he has that experience too.
“It will be a great addition to the squad but it depends what the manager wants and what the owners want.”
OPINION
Cole is probably just trying to keep himself in the good books of his former club, because he is so wrong here. Nasri was a classy player, he isn’t anymore. There was a reason that he was playing for Antalyaspor in Turkey before his doping ban and that is because he is no longer Premier League quality. If it was at a more reputable Turkish club like Galatasaray then fair enough, but the former Arsenal star’s fall from grace has been huge over the last few years. He has not kicked a ball in 2018 as well so you have to consider the fact that his ability will have declined even more from leaving a mid-table Turkish club and he won’t be able to play for West Ham until January. Other than the fact that Pellegrini knows him, there is little about this that makes sense. And even when you consider that positive, Pellegrini also knows Scott Sinclair and Jesus Navas from managing them at City. Should he sign them up? No way.