Joe Cole has opened up on his failure to succeed at Liverpool, laying a portion of the blame at the door of owners Fenway Sports Group.
Cole joined the Reds in the summer of 2010 shortly after Roy Hodgson had replaced Rafa Benitez as manager and the free transfer was widely viewed at the time as an excellent piece of business.
The gifted attacking midfielder arrived from Chelsea as a Premier League winner, having starred for the Londoners the season previous, but Cole's stint at Anfield failed to take flight.
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He was sent off on his debut in a 1-1 draw with Arsenal at home and he struggled to leave his imprint at the club with a succession of injuries limiting him to just 42 appearances.
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The majority of those were made in his debut season before he returned to make a further 10 appearances under Brendan Rodgers after a spell on loan in Ligue 1 with Lillle.
Asked why he didn't make the grade with Liverpool in a fans' Q&A for Four-Four-Two , Cole said he never had the backing of FSG, who had replaced Tom Hicks and George Gillett as owners in October 2010.
"I joined Liverpool for the owners, then new owners took over and the noises were that they wanted me off the wage bill," Cole said.
"The noises were coming through my agent that they wanted me out. When you sign for a new club and five minutes later they want you out, you're facing an uphill battle straight away.
"You are just being thrown a few scraps off the bench 10 minutes here and there, 15 minutes here and there, plus the odd League Cup match.
"I always did my best at Liverpool and personally I think that if you look at the games I played in, I didn't do anything wrong - I just didn't play enough.
"Then my body was starting to break down, so I'd have four weeks off here, six weeks off there, then I'd get fit and it was just a spiral. If I had been managed better, I could have done better."
Cole retired in November 2018 and is now a technical academy coach at Chelsea.
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