Brentford's Donaldson reveals Ashley Cole's frustration at his own teammates

According to Brentford striker Clayton Donaldson, Ashley Cole was unable to control his rage and frustration at his own teammates as the European champions were held by League One side Brentford in their recent FA cup match.

The Blues defender was constantly complaining about the absence of movement from the Chelsea front-line, which was led before by Fernando Torres, at Griffin Park.

Clayton Donaldson was recorded as saying that he witnessed the on-field pressures throughout the fourth tie round on Sunday.

When Donaldson was asked if he had seen Chelsea’s players getting mad on the pitch, he told the Guardian, ‘Absolutely. I was obviously closer to Ashley. He was always mumbling something, always mumbling stuff quietly, but I could still hear what he was saying. He was just getting frustrated. He was saying about the forward players not showing, saying things like ‘He needs to be there’ and pointing. You could just see straight away that he was getting frustrated. That was a good thing.”

He also said, “We are confident. That (atmosphere at Stamford Bridge) has played a part in their recent form. Obviously the fans are unhappy with the manager – they don’t really like him – so any little thing that goes wrong, they’re always on their backs. I think that has played a part in their recent results so, hopefully, we can put that to our advantage and the take the positives and unrest their fans again at their place.”

Brentford could earn upto £1m, which would be a major windfall for a club that underwent a huge loss of £5m in 2012.

Donaldson also said, “You couldn’t really see that they were European champions. We set out to unsettle them, and we did that. They didn’t really create that many chances, which I am very surprised about to be honest, especially with the quality of players they have got. That was down to our hard work.”

“We’d done our homework on them and we stopped them creating. We have to take some credit for that. We’re confident, especially given their run of form at home recently not having been the best. The pressure will be on them again.”