The similarities are striking. Two players who thought they were worth far more than they earned. And two players who thought that it would be a good idea to write a book.

Arsenal and Chelsea fans could argue all night about who got the better end of the deal when Ashley Cole and William Gallas swapped clubs in August 2006, but no one can deny that the biggest losers have been the readers of sporting autobiographies.

My Defence by Ashley Cole is widely acknowledged as being one of the worst football books ever — you can pick up a copy for 50p on eBay if you are interested — but Gallas appears to have tried to go one better by releasing his life story in France.

Comments made while publicising La Parole est la Defense have already cost Gallas the Arsenal captaincy and his account of his move from Chelsea to Arsenal is guaranteed to make him even less popular with the supporters of both clubs.

Taking a leaf out of Cole’s book, Gallas moans about how he was undervalued by Chelsea and how hard it was surviving on £20,000 a week. “Chelsea came back to me and said, ‘We’ll offer you a new contract with a rise, but not as much as you’re asking,’ ” Gallas writes. “No one knows how laughable their offer was.”

Gallas, who earns £80,000 a week at the Emirates Stadium, also reveals that he had been tapped up by AC Milan while he was a Chelsea player. Cole was fined £75,000 by the FA for making inappropriate contact with Chelsea, in a Central London hotel, about a possible move without telling Arsenal.

“Milan were knocking on my door,” Gallas writes. “An irony. really, this prestigious Italian team were offering me a salary higher than that which I was asking of Chelsea. Straight away, I was seduced. Not because of the euros but because of the faith a club has in you, the value they put on you.”

Gallas’s departure from Stamford Bridge was so acrimonious that José Mourinho claimed that the France defender had threatened to score own goals if he was not sold. Gallas’s record of his conversation with Mourinho is not that different from the former Chelsea manager’s version of events.

“You’re going to put me on the pitch, OK, but if the heart is not there and I’m not concentrating, I risk making errors, errors that I’m not used to making,” Gallas writes. “We could let in a goal, so lose a match stupidly. This is what I said, word for word.”