Cole impresses new England boss

Harry Redknapp revealed that Sven-Goran Eriksson had been hugely impressed by teenager Joe Cole in his first taste of Premiership football as England coach.  

Cole was on the losing side as Sunderland won 2-0 at Upton Park to move into second place in the table.

But the teenager was certainly the most impressive English prospect on display, with bursts of pace and trickery even if he tired late in only his second game after a lengthy injury.

The West Ham boss revealed: "I met Mr Eriksson after the game and he was obviously very impressed with Joe. He said that he's special, a very good player."

The West Ham boss added: "If he wants to put him in the England squad, he'll go and play.

"Joe certainly is special. His heart is as big as his body. The harder you kick him, the more he will come back for more. He's not going to shirk any challenges.

"He's been out for 10 weeks and missed an awful lot of games but he's been superb in training all week and is back to form now."

Cole, 19, whose first start after an ankle injury was at Walsall last weekend, set up Paolo di Canio with a superb through-ball but the Italian struck the post at 1-0 down and that was the closest West Ham came to scoring.

Redknapp admitted it was difficult to find the right balance with Cole and di Canio in the same side but insisted that "you have to get Joe in your team and I've no doubt he'll go on to be one of the great players in the game".

Redknapp, who admitted his side missed Michael Carrick - "he's also going to go right to the top" - is still looking to tie up prospective deals for Christian Dailly and Lorenzo Amoruso next week.