Carlton Cole has revealed that the 'lowest point' of his playing career came when he was denied a Premier League winners' medal in the 2005/06 season. He was playing for Chelsea at the time and Jose Mourinho took steps to make sure the young striker could not claim the award.

The English forward, now retired, is best remembered for his time at West Ham United. With the Hammers, he played 293 times, scoring 67 goals. He started out his career, however, at Stamford Bridge.

Arriving at the West London club as a youngster, he signed his first professional contract in October 2000 and made his debut in 2002. He spent the next few seasons out on loan but was with the squad for the entire 2005/06 campaign.

While he was only a fringe player, with opportunities limited due to the presence of Didier Drogba and Hernan Crespo, towards the end of the season, there was a chance that Cole could end up picking up a Premier League winners' medal.

Manager Mourinho wasn't keen on letting this happen though. He felt that the youngster just did not deserve the accolade.

Why Mourinho Denied Cole a Winners' Medal

"He felt that I wasn’t deserving"

Speaking in an interview with FourFourTwo, Cole detailed the saddest point in his career. It came in his early days with the Blues, right at the end of that title-winning campaign. He said:

"The lowest point was on the last day of the 2005/06 campaign.

"We won the league under Jose Mourinho, but I didn’t play for the last three matches of the season because he didn’t want me to get a Premier League winners' medal. All I needed was to play in two games, but Jose wouldn’t let me do that. He felt that I wasn’t deserving of a medal, so in the end I never got one."

It's no secret that Mourinho can be brutal to his players at times. After all, he's fallen out with countless stars over the years, from Paul Pogba and Luke Shaw at Manchester United to Iker Casillas and Pepe at Real Madrid.

At this stage of Cole's career, he'd played just 33 times for the club, with 8 goals under his belt. It's quite possible that his Portuguese manager was just hoping to motivate him at the time. But the Englishman would never play for the club again, leaving for West Ham that summer.

Cole would fail to win a single major honour across the rest of his career. In hindsight, it certainly was a bitter blow that the forward ended the season without a medal, having played 14 times for the club across all competitions, scoring one goal.

Cole's Best Career Moment

Scoring on debut for Chelsea

Despite this pain, not all of Cole's memories at Chelsea are sad. In the same interview, he explained how the club also gave him the 'highest point' of his playing career. He said:

"My senior debut for Chelsea in our 3-0 win against Everton in 2002 was my highlight.

"I came on for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and the applause I got from the home fans made me feel a sense of achievement and elation, because I knew how much work I’d put in to get to that stage.

"To have the chance to play for the first team in front of 40,000 fans with everyone knowing my name and wanting me to do well was a massive high point in my career - one I’ll never forget."

He scored in that debut game and at this stage of his career, he was a very exciting prospect having come through the Chelsea academy. In fact, manager Claudio Ranieri even labelled Cole as the best young player he had coached up to that date, with the Italian saying: "I've never coached a young player like Carlton.

"He's fantastic even though he hasn't really started his career yet. He has a very long contract, and, in my opinion, a very big future at Chelsea."

Cole would ultimately make 288 Premier League appearances across his career, netting 52 goals and picking up 23 assists. His best goalscoring spell came in 2008/09 and 2009/10 when he consecutively scored 10 league goals in back-to-back seasons at West Ham.

He spent time at Celtic, Sacramento Republic and Persib Bandung towards the end of his career, before hanging up his boots – with seven England caps to his name – in 2017. He now works as a pundit for talkSPORT.