Roman’s empire keeps expanding as Chelsealand Cole and Veron

JOE COLE last night completed his move to Chelsea with Juan Sebastian Veron poised to follow suit today.

Chelsea were involved in talks with both players over personal terms yesterday after agreeing fees of £15m and £6.6m respectively with Manchester United and West Ham.

Cole became the first of the pair to put pen to paper having agreed terms and passed a medical, with Chelsea confident of completing the Veron deal today in time for both to be eligible for next week’s Champions League final qualifying round.

Cole revealed his desire to follow in the footsteps of his boyhood Chelsea heroes, picking out Dennis Wise and Kerry Dixon as his personal favourites.

Chelsea agreed a fee of £12.5m for Veron, with a further £2.5m dependent upon the Blues’ success over the length of his proposed four-year contract.

United, who announced the agreement to the Stock Exchange just before 7am, were therefore prepared to let the Argentina international leave for around half of the £28.1m they paid Lazio for him just two years ago.

However, Claudio Ranieri is clearly determined to install Veron as the central playmaker of his new-look side, with Cole as his creative deputy.

Then again, the Chelsea boss has also told his team he is planning to vary his tactics this season away from last season’s more settled 4-4-2 line-up, possibly to allow Veron to float behind a front two.

West Ham, meanwhile, insisted they had been left no option other than to sell Cole because the player had made it clear he was unlikely to extend his contract which had a year left to run.

Chelsea’s spending may not have stopped there, with a further high-profile arrival possible before the transfer window shuts at the end of this month.

The Blues have reportedly been tracking central midfielders Emerson and Edgar Davids, as well as strikers Christian Vieri and Samuel Eto’o.

However, all of their arrivals so far have had Premiership experience, with even Geremi having spent last season on loan at Middlesbrough.

Alex Ferguson revealed he agreed to sell Veron because United had too many midfielders.

The Scot felt he had more than enough talent in midfield, even with Beckham’s departure, and admitted he feared upsetting some of his players if he had not trimmed his squad.

“When the first opportunity concerning Juan Sebastian Veron and Chelsea came up I initiated the interest in Klebersen because I felt Klebersen was one for the future and in the long term was good for Manchester United,” he said

“The initial response from Chelsea was that they didn’t come back and we carried on with the Klebersen deal.

“We had a choice of central midfield players and when another offer came in for Seba we decided to take it.

“I think there would have been problems ahead with the players in midfield.”

Veron struggled to adapt to life in the Barclaycard Premiership and came in for plenty of criticism during his two years at Old Trafford.

But Ferguson defended his £28.1m signing, claiming Veron’s imminent departure had little to do with his performances on the field.

He added: “In the overall package it’s worth a lot of money to us and it does enable me to bring in a young midfield player to the club.

“What we save on his salary and what we get from Chelsea made it difficult to turn down.”