Andy Cole believes that any talk of Manchester City being the best team in Premier League history is ‘a total lack of respect’ to his former club Manchester United. The current City side have already wrapped up the Premier League title and FA Cup this season and can secure the treble on Saturday when they take on Inter Milan in the Champions League final in Istanbul. Cole, who was a big part of the all-conquering Manchester United team from 24 years ago, is dismissive of any suggestion that the current City side has eclipsed his and his teammates’ achievements. He said: ‘Already calling Manchester City the best team in Premier League history is a total lack of respect to Manchester United, especially from people who weren’t in that position too. You can tell there is a lot of hatred towards Manchester United because of their success. Fair play if Manchester City win the treble but that doesn’t make them a better team than we were.’
Cole went as far as saying that he wouldn’t swap any of his Manchester United teammates for a current Manchester City star, insisting that even the smaller names in that team were more than good enough to compete with the best City have to offer. He said: ‘I would not change a single player out of my team for any of these current Manchester City players. Otherwise, that’s me being disrespectful to my teammates, and at the end of the day, we’re still the only team to have won the treble so far. Manchester City spent a lot of money to get to this position, Manchester United had six homegrown players, that tells you everything. Ronny Johnsen was a fantastic player and he gets disrespected too. If he was such a bad player, why was he playing for Manchester United in one of the best central defending partnerships with Jaap Stam? People say Ruben Dias, well he wasn’t playing for Manchester United at that time and he hasn’t won the treble.’