Ashley Cole.

Ashley Cole, arguably one of the greatest left backs of all time, and the best left back England has ever seen, has just signed for Derby County.

Had you told me exactly twelve months ago that we'd have Frank Lampard as our manager, the likes of Shay Given, Chris Jones, and Jody Morris all part of our backroom staff, and we'd have full internationals in our squad like Ashley Cole and Harry Wilson alongside exciting prospects in Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, Jack Marriott and Duane Holmes - I would have laughed in your face. Exactly twelve months ago, Derby fans were raging after a stalemate 0-0 draw at home against Bristol City and an unappealing debut from new signing Cameron Jerome did not settle the nerves of the fans going into February, where we are very well-known for messing up. Gary Rowett has signed a new contract just weeks before after a lot of speculation of him moving to Stoke City, who recently sacked Mark Hughes, but Rowett was not meeting the high expectations of the fans. Needless to say, we might have been expecting too much at the time, but never in our wildest dreams would we have expected to be in a scenario such as this today - the eyes of the world's media on us as a club as we sign the Ashley Cole.

Ashley Cole is 38 years old, that is not the ideal age for a squad such as ours but maybe it is something that we need to push the team over the final few months of the season as possibly, it is the inexperience that is costing us as the pressure gets to the younger players. We have been playing at a consistently high standard throughout the season, especially with January nearly over - we have not messed up massively, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Ashley Cole has won the Premier League a total of three times, the FA Cup seven times, the Community Shield three times, as well as winning the League Cup, the Europa League and the Champions League over 385 appearances for both Arsenal and Chelsea - as well as racking up 97 appearances for both Roma and LA Galaxy, as well as a handful of appearances at Crystal Palace in the earlier years of his career. He certainly had a glittering career to say the least.

He also picked up a total of 107 caps for England, and has played with Frank Lampard for 190 Premier League matches too. He scored a total of 19 goals across his career domestically, and scored just the one goal in his international career. However, we cannot knock his ability to deliver pinpoint crosses and in blocking shots as well as crosses (which is something we could do with at the moment!), as well as the colossal number of clearances he can rack up. Cole was made captain of LA Galaxy in the 2018 season in MLS - a positive of this is that he is capable of leadership and leading by example, which might be significantly important to the youngsters we have on our team - and he contributed with an impressive total of 9 assists and a goal, bearing in mind that LA Galaxy does not have the same standard of strikers like those he used to play with at Chelsea and Arsenal (apart from Zlatan Ibrahimovic), but I can guarantee you that his crosses were pinpoint - it just is not as easy to register assists when the crosses are not converted into goals, quite obviously... he was the defender in the MLS whose registered the highest amount of assists last season too. We have been struggling to stabilise our left back position, using multiple alternatives in Max Lowe, Craig Forsyth, Scott Malone, Andre Wisdom and even Duane Holmes but with the arrival of Ashley Cole and Scott Malone's injuries seemingly to become less frequent; we might have found some sort of stabilisation in that position. We also might have earned a defensive coach come the end of the season as Ashley Cole retires and seeks for the next step in his football career - Frank Lampard is also a massive fan of him, singing his praises and repeatedly reminding the fans that Cole is the dream professional that every club needs to have to ensure success.

Regardless of his age, he brings with him a wealth of expertise, a calm and mature head and a strong set of leadership skills - he might just be the missing piece to the puzzle.

"Derby play good football. They are definitely in the top three teams in terms of style and philosophy in how they play." - Ashley Cole