He wanted to leave once we made it clear we would be bringing in another winger to replace Mahrez. If all we cared about was net spend then surely we would've just kept him and not signed a more expensive player in Doku? Before you say we could've had both, we were not going to keep an unhappy squad player.
Well, in hindsight that was dumb.
I was one of those that really wanted Cole to stay, his performances for Chelsea should come as no surprise to any City fan that have seen him play. But my main problem is that if he now wanted to leave and we sold him for that reason, why on earth didn't we replace him? If we sell a winger capable of delivering 10 goal involvements in 14 PL games (like he has in Chelsea this season), he should be replaced by a player of similar (or better) quality. Not just promote a youth player. Especially not when we already had let several elite level players leave and the squad already looked significantly weaker in both quality and depth. Selling a €50m winger and not even replacing him under these circumstances is almost self-sabotage.
