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Samuel: keep Cole in

What happened on Wednesday night happened in a Chelsea shirt and it's up to Chelsea to deal with Ashley Cole if they feel he has let the club down.

Martin Samuel
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Martin Samuel shot down calls for Ashley Cole to be dropped from the England side.

Sir Bobby Robson believes Fabio Capello should make an example of the Chelsea left-back following his actions against Tottenham in midweek.

Cole turned his back on referee Mike Riley as he was being booked for an ugly challenge on Spurs' Alan Hutton.

The player has since apologised - for the tackle and his behaviour - but Robson still called for the England coach to leave out players who do not set the right example in the wake of the Football Association's bid to clean up the image of the game.

But Samuel, the recently-crowned Sports Writer of the Year, believes the former England coach has got it wrong.

"I don't agree with that," he told the Sunday Supplement. "I think if you start doing that, you set a precedent whereby you're going to start judging every single issue that there is on a Wednesday night or Saturday afternoon. Are you going to then knock that on to England.

"There was a time when if you were banned for your club you couldn't play for England - in all games I think - and that was changed about 10 years ago because it was felt that if a player steps out of line for his club, England get punished. And how can you have that?

Plasters

"For that reason how can you start dictating to Capello that he's got to set this moral stance?

"What happened on Wednesday night happened in a Chelsea shirt and it's up to Chelsea to deal with Ashley Cole if they feel he has let the club down.

"It's left to them to pick up the pieces, not for Capello to start sticking plasters over what's wrong at English club level."

But Samuel did have a warning for Cole and the rest of the England squad - don't mess up on international duty.

He suggested that Capello has been far from impressed with the haranguing of referees in the Premier League and will waste no time in living up to his reputation as a strict disciplinarian.

"If Ashley Cole did that in an England shirt then that's for Capello to decide if he plays him in the next match - and I think he would make that decision," he said.

"One of the things we are hearing is that one of the things that Capello has been deeply unimpressed with in English football is as soon as a referee makes a decision 12 guys go chasing after him.

"I think Capello would deal with that."

To see the full Supplement debate on Cole, his tackle, his reaction and referees, click on the video icon at the top-right of the page...