Oh dear Joe Cole, where did it all go wrong?

The announcement that the former Chelsea winger is to sign for Liverpool was greeted by many Blues fans with dismay. But it is pity we should really have for the man.

Joe has been so poorly advised over his future that his career now looks set to end in a cul de sac with a club that hasn't challenged for the title in two decades.

He fell out with Chelsea over his perceived value: the club thought £80k a week wasn't a bad offer for a fringe player; Joe's people wanted £100k, which is more than Didier Drogba takes home.

The Stamford Bridge hierarchy rightly said he could take or leave the offer, and Joe decided to leave it. He was certain he could get what he considered to be his worth, and that he could continue to play at the highest level. The writing was on the wall long before the end of last season – Joe Cole was to leave Chelsea, the club he had supported as a boy.

Joe and his advisors started dropping come-and-get-me hints from about January – which, as an out-of-contract player, they were fully entitled to do. In May, before the decree absolute was stamped, Joe hinted that he fancied Manchester City over Tottenham – just so long as they could secure Champions League qualification. Nothing at all to do with them being the highest payers in the game.

Joe said over and over that all he wanted was a boss who could show faith in him, and make him central to his plans. First and foremost he wanted to play beautiful football and to win things.

He could have had the opportunity to do all those things with a move to Spurs or Arsenal – both of which were on the table. But he chose to knock back the offers of £65k and £80k a week respectively, in order to take the £90k offered by a club who will need to play Thursday-night football in Macedonia to qualify for Europe's version of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

Still, £4.7m per year probably buys you a lot of house in Merseyside.

The one positive thing Joe can take from this unseemly transaction is that he should at least be united with a manager likely to get the best out of him. Roy Hodgson has made that his speciality, and there is no reason why he can't do the same with Joe.

But, after his cruciate ligament injury, I do wonder what Joe Cole's best is – and sadly doubt that it is quite good enough to win him a regular place at a top club. Hence his move to a team that last season finished 23 points behind his old club.

I've written before how much I respect Joe the man; and I doubt very much this change of club will change his approach to life. He will surely remain one of football's good guys.

But it is a real shame that he seems to have cashed in so much of the ambition he previously showed, for what looks like little more than a big pay day offered by a couple of Americans and their travelling circus.