Chelsea defender Ashley Cole has spoken of his unhappiness over his reputation.

He was criticised over the way he moved from Arsenal to Chelsea in 2006 and for turning his back on referee Mike Riley last season in a game against Spurs.

Cole was also booed by some England fans during the 5-1 win over Kazakhstan after his mistake led to their goal.

"Of course I'm not happy that everyone hates you because they don't know me and only know me through what's written," he told Football Focus.

"With the England game, I'm not going to sit here and say it didn't bother me, of course it did.

"I'm just like you, I'm like everyone else, I've got feelings and it made me feel that small at the time. It was hard to deal with but you can't stop people from booing.

"As long as I know that people that are close to me know how I am, know I'm not this monster that people seem to think I am, as long as my friends, family and team-mates, manager, are all happy with what's going on then I'm fine with that."

After moving to Chelsea, Cole released his autobiography "My Defence", that reportedly sold only 4,000 copies, and earned him further criticism after he described his Arsenal team-mates as "lazy".

He also claimed he joined Chelsea because he was angry that Arsenal made no serious attempt to keep him and that the club had only offered him weekly wage of �55,000.

"I try not to regret things I've done in life but if things could have changed then I probably wouldn't have done the book," said Cole.

"I think in the case of my book, I've probably done it out of frustration but it made everything ten times worse."

While Cole's reputation has suffered in recent years his wife Cheryl, the Girls Aloud singer, is now one of the most popular women in Britain thanks to her appearances as a judge on the X Factor television programme.

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