Source: SKY_Sports
Drogba my inspiration - Cole
// A bit of a hack but it works// The article snippet is wrapped onto a second line, even when #article-sub is emptyif( $("div#article-sub").children().length == 0 ) {$("div#article-sub").remove();} England's Carlton Cole uses his long-time friend Didier Drogba as his inspiration after putting his upturn in fortunes down to a new-found maturity.[LNB] The West Ham striker is in the England squad for Saturday's home friendly with Slovenia and Wednesday's World Cup qualifier with Croatia.[LNB]It appears he is finally fulfilling the early promise that led to then Chelsea coach Claudio Ranieri spotlighting Cole as a star of the future.[LNB]Ironically it was the arrival of Drogba that led to the young England player falling down the pecking order at Stamford Bridge but that has never stopped him being a massive admirer of the Ivory Coast striker. The two are also still in regular contact.[LNB]"Didier Drogba is a brilliant player, a world-class player," said Cole. "He's a more mature player than I am and I just need to look at the way he plays and hopefully become as good.[LNB]"I don't want to be similar to him, but I want to be at that level where I'm confident in what I can do.[LNB]"I know every time he goes onto the field he knows what he's going to do and he knows he's going to cause all these defenders havoc. So that's the level I want to get to."[LNB]Ranieri's lionCole concedes he was not professional enough in his approach during the early part of his career.[LNB]He said: "I would put what happened with my career down to not concentrating, thinking life was going to be easy, and not being a professional basically.[LNB]"Ranieri said I was 'his lion' but, when he said that, Abramovich came in and signed all these multi-million pound players including Didier (Drogba) and that pushed me out.[LNB]"I had to go on loan. I was a bit peed off about it and, being young, I didn't see the bigger picture. I didn't really take it seriously after that.[LNB]"If I'd go on loan I was saying 'it doesn't matter because I'll go back to Chelsea and make a go of it again'. Then I went on loan again the season after and it was another blow for me to stomach.[LNB]"It's true I once turned up for a game at half-time. I'm not proud of it. All that's behind me now. I wasn't professional enough back then and didn't take my football seriously enough.[LNB]"I've now come to terms with how to conduct myself off the field and on the field. Hopefully I can progress from now on."[LNB]
