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• Decision to move to Anfield a ‘no-brainer’
• Midfielder ‘jumped on board’ after hearing plans

Joe Cole today completed his free transfer from Chelsea to Liverpool and immediately risked upsetting his former employer by provocatively claiming he had joined “the biggest club in the country”. The England international, who has signed a four-year contract, dismissed suggestions that money was the motivation for moving to Liverpool and insisted that swapping Stamford Bridge for Anfield was purely a football decision.

Cole went on to describe Liverpool as a “massive club” and claimed the prospect of running out on a regular basis at the stadium that left such an indelible mark on him in 2005, when he was part of the Chelsea side defeated 1-0 in the Champions League semi-final second leg during an electric night at Anfield, was too good to turn down. Yet it is his remarks suggesting Liverpool represent a step up from Chelsea that will spark the most interest, particularly at Stamford Bridge.

“I tried to take everything out of the equation, take the financial and location side out and just thought in football terms,” Cole said, explaining how he arrived at his decision. “I thought about the semi-final of the Champions League in 2005 when I ran on to the field and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I was thinking about playing in that atmosphere every week and that swung it for

• Former Chelsea midfielder signs £18.7m, four-year deal
• Hodgson hopes capture will also appease Torres

Liverpool hope Joe Cole’s arrival at Anfield on a four-year deal worth £18.7m can convince Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to commit their futures to the club.

Cole agreed to become Liverpool’s second summer signing today when he rejected the chance of Champions League football with Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal in favour of a £90,000-a-week contract on Merseyside. The transfer will be finalised providing the England midfielder passes a medical in the next 48 hours in Switzerland, where he has arrived at Liverpool’s pre-season training camp.

Liverpool’s offer to Cole, who was available on a free following Chelsea’s refusal to extend his contract at Stamford Bridge, is understood to have bettered the terms available in north London but was not the most lucrative deal on the table. West Ham United, one of Cole’s former clubs, made the highest offer to the 28-year-old but the prospect of joining Liverpool, and regular first-team football under the new manager, Roy Hodgson, swayed him.

Cole’s decision gives the lie to the notion that remaining in the capital on the most lucrative contract available was his over-riding ambition. The Chelsea manager, Carlo Ancelotti, claimed at the weekend that Cole’s problem at Stamford Bridge was not personal but economic.

His move to Anfield has wider implications for Liverpool, who have endured a turbulent period on and off the field recently, with the departure of Rafael Benítez as manager accompanied by doubts over the futures of Gerrard, Torres and Javier Mascherano.

Liverpool are reluctant to say anything publicly about Cole’s signing, beyond confirmation of the agreement, until a player who suffered a serious cruciate ligament injury in January 2009 has passed a stringent medical. Club officials are increasingly hopeful, however, that a transfer that has been well-received by senior players will serve as a statement of intent to Gerrard and Torres should they become the subject of bids from Real Madrid and Chelsea respectively.

No offers have been received for Gerrard or Torres, despite long-standing interest in the pair and their frustrations at the club finishing seventh in the Premier League last season and Liverpool’s struggles to compete at the higher end of the transfer market. Mascherano is a target for Internazionale and Liverpool may show less resistance to selling a player who has agitated for a move for two summers.

In the circumstances Cole’s arrival will provide a significant fillip to Liverpool who, despite the £350m debt placed on the club by the co-owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, have signed an England international and the Serbia striker Milan Jovanovic on free transfers, but substantial personal terms, this summer.

Selling Yossi Benayoun to Chelsea raised £5m and Liverpool intend to increase that figure significantly by reducing the size of the first-team squad. Emiliano Insúa is considering a £5m move to Fiorentina and Albert Riera is close to joining Olympiakos for a similar fee. All the deals were put in place before Hodgson joined on 1 July. The manager has confirmed a new left-back is a priority, given that three will have left since January should Insúa follow Andrea Dossena and Fábio Aurélio out the club.

Hodgson has said that Liverpool’s World Cup contingent will not be considered for Europa League qualifying duty next week, but that policy may not apply to Cole, who was restricted to just two substitute appearances totalling 44 minutes in England’s woeful campaign.

Ian Rush, who retains close links with his former club, said: “I’m sure Roy Hodgson will play him in every game, especially if he is playing well, and maybe getting regular football is a reason why he has come to Liverpool. To get Joe to come out of London and come to Liverpool is a coup for Hodgson itself. We might not have been as successful as we would have liked to have been recently, but this shows we can still attract top-name players, whether that’s an England international or a foreign international.

“We’ve got a great new manager in Roy Hodgson and he knows what he wants, and he can talk these players into signing for our club. This is the signing supporters wanted and it’s a big boost for them. You look at last season when we went into it not hoping but thinking we were going to win the league.

“This season people are thinking are we going to finish in the top four. I think this sends a sign out to Liverpool supporters that the club do mean business.”

LiverpoolJoe ColeTransfer windowSteven GerrardFernando TorresAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

It could be a while before the next great side emerges in England, but that may be no bad thing

If Chelsea beat Wigan Athletic on Sunday they will reclaim the Premier League title and no Stamford Bridge fan would care a jot that they would have done so with 86 points, the lowest total for any champions since 2003. The statistic, indeed, is highly encouraging for the sport at large in its hint that the top flight is on the verge of change.

As economics shift, so too does the hierarchy of the game. It has already been a while since brute wealth reduced opponents to a state of helplessness before the game even started. Should Carlo Ancelotti prevail in this campaign it will be because he has influenced the Chelsea squad rather than rebuilt it.

In the weekend’s 2-0 victory at Anfield, there was not a single member of the starting line-up who had been bought by him. Management in many places has reverted to the traditional virtues of making the most of what you already have. There will always be acquisitions, but Manchester United are sustaining their challenge to Chelsea while counting on people who were once Alex Ferguson’s fledglings.

Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs all took part in FA Youth Cup finals in the early 1990s, but the manager is asking them now to strive for a major prize even as the plumage of those former fledglings grows sparser still. Not even Ferguson can intimidate time, however, and the passing of the years will harm the club if there are no means to buy elite footballers.

Upheaval is registering elsewhere, too. Liverpool, at best, will come sixth this season and an unbroken run of Champions League appearances that started in 2004 has now snapped. Anfield fans, however, have a deeper disquiet than that. There are no signs of a takeover being completed, but without it a mid-table position could start to look natural at a club where squad strength is waning fast.

We are already seeing fresh contenders emerge. At Eastlands tomorrow Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur will each be vying for a spot in the Champions League, a tournament that has not featured either team since the 60s, when it was still known as the European Cup. Money has much to do with the upsurge of City in particular and a step into the grandest competition would surely bring another surge of cash from Sheikh Mansour.

That, however, is an anomaly. Extravagance is less common in a period when club proprietors often concentrate on holding on to their wealth. There have been doubts as to whether Martin O’Neill will stay at Aston Villa and the sort of gossip there concerns the prospects of retaining Ashley Young or James Milner, rather than of Randy Lerner producing the funds for an upgrade in the squad.

We are entering the sort of landscape that should look full of beauty and promise for Arsène Wenger. The Arsenal manager, with good cause, makes his charges of “financial doping” against rivals, but there are no longer so many clubs who would test positive for unacceptable levels of affluence.

Wenger’s frugality assists in paying off the £390m cost of building the Emirates Stadium and he has indicated that Arsenal’s cash flow can now begin to pour more freely into his budget. Judging by the type of speculation that presently links him to a £22m bid for the Ajax forward Luis Suárez, the manager may yet see the day when a ground with a 60,000 capacity in a relatively rich city puts him in a stronger financial position than almost all of his Premier League counterparts.

Even as matters stand, there ought to be pressure on Wenger to compete more vigorously. No spree is anticipated at United and Roman Abramovich does not look inclined to cut loose at Chelsea. Any opportunity for Arsenal, of course, will remove Wenger from a comfort zone in which he is complimented on the style of his side and excused for the lack of honours since the 2005 FA Cup.

The league title had gone to Highbury the year before, but Abramovich was just getting into his stride at Stamford Bridge and José Mourinho took the reins in that summer of 2004. We are in a very different period now and the comparative austerity is to be measured in the elimination of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool before the Champions League semi-finals this season.

It could be a while before we see the next exceptional side emerge, but there are compensations. Although the Premier League may not hit the heights, interest will soar if the dull old certainties have vanished.

Premier LeagueChelseaManchester UnitedArsenalLiverpoolKevin McCarraguardian.co.uk