Rumour: Chelsea's Ashley Cole to retire at the end of season

Ashley Cole: Retiring at 33?

Reports suggest that English left-back Ashley Cole might decide to hang up his boots come the end of season. Cole will wait till the end of the season to see if he can win a regular place in Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea side before deciding over his future.

Recently, Mourinho had claimed that the left-back can only hope to be on the substitutes bench at best for the key game against Arsenal tonight.

Just 24 hours after being knocked out from Capital Once Cup by Sunderland, Cole was pictured at Arsenal’s Christmas Party last week. Cole, who celebrated his 33rd birthday on Friday has not started a Premier League game since the defeat at Newcastle in early November, having struggled to fully recover from a rib injury. Cesar Azpilicueta, despite his natural position being on the right, has been preferred to Cole.

Cole can expect to be offered an extension to his current deal set to expire at the end of the season, as was claimed by Mourinho. While negotiations over a new deal are yet to take place, Cole is in no rush to make any firm decisions while being unsure of how he fits in the Portuguese’s plans.

Chelsea are also front-runners for 18-year old Southampton wonder-kid Luke Shaw, a left back and are hoping to snap him either in January or in the summer. This puts another question mark over Cole’s Chelsea career, as it is unknown whether Cole would be interested in being kept on to effectively act as an on-pitch mentor to the 18-year-old.

The English International can talk to overseas clubs in January, but may find that he does not have the same options available to him as last year when Real Madrid and Paris St-Germain were interested.

Despite uncertainty over his Chelsea position, Cole remains confident that he can keep his international place for the World Cup in Brazil and become the first Englishman to play in four finals.

This is not the first time that Chelsea have been reluctant to offer a veteran player an extension, as was previously seen in the cases of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. While Lampard was offered an extension very close to his contract expiry; Drgoba who almost single-handedly won Chelsea the coveted Champions League title was offered an extension too late and one which he could refuse. We will know how this pans out in the case of Cole, come the end of the season.

Will he hang up his boots or sign up for a lesser team?