Liverpool can be a strange experience; frighteningly insular but also, because of its links across the Atlantic, open and innovative: the first British city to embrace rock music and black immigration. Scousers, they say, are northern Cockneys and even without football the young Harry Redknapp, whose entire career in the English game has taken him no further north than the Seven Sisters Road, would not have starved in the Liverpool of the Beatles. His son, Jamie, did all right at Anfield.

“I got a good piece of advice, years ago,” said Cole, settling himself into his seat at his first press conference. “If you are going to sign for a club, you have to immerse yourself in it. I am living in a hotel in the centre of Liverpool and I’m making sure I go out and meet people. It is a very vibrant city. I love it.

Fra en The Independent-artikel om Joe Cole, der fik sin Liverpool-debut i preseason-træningen mod Borussia Mönchengladbach i Tyskland i dag.