Grant praises 'mature' Cole

Chelsea coach Avram Grant has praised Ashley Cole for the mature way in which he apologised for his horror tackle on Tottenham defender Alan Hutton.

Cole said sorry for his high challenge on the Spurs player after watching the incident on television.

The England defender, who was also criticised for turning his back on referee Mike Riley as he was shown the yellow card, included the official in his apology.

Now Grant insists Cole should be applauded for his decision to apologise to both parties and called on the Football Association to make the rules clearer by only allowing team captains to protest to officials on the pitch.

"First you need to give credit to Ashley because he behaved like a mature guy," said Grant.

"He saw what he did the day afterwards and he apologised himself. Nobody pushed him to apologise and you need to give credit to him about that."

Grant added: "He made a tackle and he realised he needed to apologise about that and his behaviour. It is the first time he's done that kind of thing and he apologised. In football, unfortunately things happen, there are worse tackles than this.

"It's more important not to do it, I agree, but because it's football and it happens, it's more important to take responsibility.

"You need to give credit to a player who after only 24 hours saw it on TV and took responsibility for it."

Meanwhile, England boss Fabio Capello is set to help enforce the Football Association's new guidelines encouraging players to show more respect to officials.

The FA this week launched their 'Respect' campaign but saw it overshadowed by Ashley Cole's petulance.

Capello, who takes charge of his second England match in next week's friendly against France, is expected to play an integral role in the association's new campaign.

Trevor Brooking, the FA's director of football development, said: "He will get his message across.

"You wouldn't want a player missing out on the latter stages of a tournament for being critical. Fabio is supportive of this."

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