West Ham United's Nigerian-born striker, Carlton Okirie Cole has admitted that he was once hit with the fear of failure at The Hammers and was already bracing up for the chop.

Though the ex-Super Eagles invitee is still basking in the euphoria of his cameo role for England’s national team in last weekend's friendly against Egypt, Cole has confessed that he thought at the beginning of this year that he was set for the EPL side’s fire sales at Upton Park.

A fire sale was expected before David Gold and David Sullivan bought out the club’s Icelandic owners in January and Cole admitted that he actually feared he would have been forced out of West Ham to keep the club afloat before the takeover.

"It was a fiasco before they arrived. It looked like we were going to have to sell some of our better players. Gold and Sullivan have come in and tidied everything up.

“They've done a really good job and everyone is very focused,” said the Rivers State indigene, who also noted that his battles with injuries contributed to fears of the chop at the turn of the year.

Cole was out with a troublesome knee injury at the time of the takeover but is now fit again, and even had a six-minute run-out for England in the 3-1 win over Egypt on Wednesday.

He added: "We had a lot of players linked to leaving the club and it was really unsettling for all of us. It wasn't just the first team regulars, but even fringe players were getting linked away from the club.

"If we were going to keep our heads above water, we were probably going to need to sell some of our better players. That's what was going to happen. Thankfully, it didn't turn out that way.

“As soon as the two Davids came in they changed everything. I don't know if anyone approached my agent about me. Because I was injured at the time, everything was kept away from me,” Cole recalled.