And so the Ashley Cole tackle saga continues. Yesterday the player issued an apology to both Hutton and the referee Mike Riley. Cole said:

“I’d like to apologise to anyone I offended and of course Alan Hutton who I tackled. I didn’t mean to go in hard that way, it was high but I tried to read the ball and get the ball first, but he was a little bit too quick for me. It wasn’t malicious and I’m a little disappointed with what people are saying, that I meant it. Of course it was a bad tackle at the time but in the heat of the moment you want to win the game and win every tackle, and as I said I’m sorry for Alan, but it was never meant.”

The Sun called it though, with a great headline:

In today’s press conference ahead of Sunday’s match with Arsenal, his manager Avram Grant has chipped in and said he believes that Cole deserves credit for making the apology:

“You need to give credit to him about this. He made a tackle and he saw it by himself that he needed to apologise.”

Seeing as he got away with just a yellow card for a really bad tackle, it’s the least he could do. He doesn’t really deserve praise for doing it.

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