There were those who questioned me as a player and despite what I have
“There were those who questioned me as a player and, despite what I have been achieving at Monaco, there will be more criticism. “I’ve never been too worried what anybody has to say about me,” says the former France captain, who helped his country lift the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship. Goalkeeper Antti Niemi denied Cole a second with the save of the day and the long wait for a home win for the Ewood Park crowd will go on a little longer.Blackburn Rovers 1 Cole 52Southampton 1 Phillips 5Half-time: 0-1 Attendance: 21,970. In that it took only seven minutes for Blackburn to draw level, he could count the changes as successful.It was Southampton’s turn to rue some slack defending as Jansen’s ball in eventually found Cole unmarked, the former Manchester United front man gleefully burying his 10th goal of the season. It was a fifth goal in six matches for Phillips as the rehabilitation of his form continues.Souness tinkered with his personnel and system at half-time, replacing Paul Gallacher with Matt Jansen as Cole’s partner, new boy Jonathan Stead is injured, and sending on Dwight Yorke while switching from 4-4-2 to 4-3-1-2. Jason Dodd’s deep cross was headed down by James Beattie but the home defence somehow failed to notice Kevin Phillips lurking in just the area a striker might expect to be found, allowing the former Sunderland forward all the time he could hope for to pick his spot.
His place as a central defender regained last season, the tall, slim, fair-haired Finn turned out 71 times for Ajax and scored eight goals. “They were all headers, either from corners or free-kicks.”Pasanen lost his place in the Ajax defence this season because, he says, “they brought in some young players and I couldn’t see myself getting back. I was either sitting on the bench or in the stand, when what I wanted to do was play football. So I informed my agent and asked him to see if there was maybe a club that wanted me.
He told me Mr Redknapp was really eager to get me, so I thought OK.”Redknapp had to move quickly to snaffle Pasanen on loan until the end of the season ahead of Alan Curbishley’s interest on behalf of Charlton. He joined Portsmouth on 5 January, played for them at Aston Villa the next day and has started every game since.”I didn’t know much about Portsmouth,” he admitted. “They show English football on Dutch TV but I never saw any Pompey games. It was all quite strange, having only played in England before with Ajax. It’s a new experience, quite different from Dutch football, much faster.