Joe Cole’s hopes of landing a new West Ham short term contract at the end of the season appear to have crashed!

ClaretandHugh learned yesterday that the player’s advisers were set to launch a last bid to sort out a deal for the player to stay at the club next season.

Cole is desperate to end his career at Upton Park and is hoping that a way can be found to extend his current contract.

But a senior source at the club explained that there was no way the player could remain on his current wage of around £30,ooo a week.

Cole loves his life at Upton Park  despite getting nothing like the number of first team appearances he would have hoped for when returning to The Boleyn.

But as a product of the club’s youth policy he remains a fan at heart and wants to stay.

However, we were told that £30,000 a week for a player who had made so few appearances and had various injuries was not a realistic prospect.

He said: “We have to do better than that for those sort of wages. We love Joe to bits and it may be we would say that he should try to sort himself out with a club and should it not happen we would look at what may be possible.

“But the reality is that he would need to come down from the sort of wages he’s on now and probably accept he was involved in a back up role.”