There were a couple of interviews with John Terry doing the rounds yesterday – one about his concerns that he isn’t even guaranteed a starting place yet next season nevermind the captaincy, and the other about him defending Didier Drogba’s behaviour after the Champions League semi against Barcelona.

I have to admit when I read his interview defending Drogba, I thought he had every right to be worried about his position at Chelsea. I mean, for a start, Uefa have only just dished out hefty punishments for two of the players involved so you can just see their eyebrows fixed in the ‘what the fuck’ position as they read the interview over their cocoas last night. I’m not all that sure the FA will appreciate the England captain publicly flying smack in the face of their ‘Respect The Ref’ campaign either come to think of it by suggesting “I am fully behind Didier Drogba for the way he reacted.  The man wants to win. You can see the passion that he played with during the game and the passion afterwards.  It is difficult when players are so high on emotions after the game and people were saying in the Sky TV studios that we shouldn’t be reacting the way we did.  That’s impossible after having six or seven decisions go against you at home in front of your own fans. I’ve seen them all and two were clear penalties and you don’t get one. How are you supposed to feel?  If we had been given one of those penalties we would have been cruising at 2-0. We did exactly what the manager asked of us but we are not going through because of a bad refereeing decision.”

The Chelsea captain goes on to say “It’s a shambles really. Players dream of playing in these finals but we can’t through bad refereeing.  We get a referee who has refereed ten Champions League games in his career and for him to be given the semi-final at Stamford Bridge is not good enough.  If a referee makes bad decisions, he should face the consequences. If a player makes mistakes time after time, he will be dropped from the team, but referees just keep getting the big games at big stadiums.  It is down to Uefa to be strong enough and say these are our four best referees and they are going to referee the home and away legs.  Both sides had experienced players but we just didn’t have the referee to go with a big game.  Not one player made a mistake over the two legs but we come away with a referee making four or five big errors and now we are out of the competition.  Maybe that referee would have been good enough in the group stages of the Champions League but on a big stage, with a big game and big players, he simply wasn’t good enough.”

Now, I have to be honest, when I first read the interview I wondered what he was playing at. In fact, I think my exact words were “why is he running off at the mouth now? It’s gone, he’s pushing his luck.”

Hadn’t he just said “I want to make sure first and foremost that I am in the Chelsea team. I want to be the captain of Chelsea next year, but the manager is yet to make those decisions.  These are things that go through your mind as a player. It doesn’t matter who you are — when a manager comes into the football club he can have different ideas.  You have seen in the England team with Michael Owen that when people are out of favour, they don’t get a look in”? So surely, with Ancelotti only just in the door, Terry should be a little less outspoken in the press – particularly around such an emotive subject? Or is it really the case – as Makelele has recently claimed – that John Terry can pretty much say and do what he likes at Chelsea?

Well, maybe there is a bit of truth in there somewhere but I can’t help thinking that with not all that much excitement going on on the transfer front at Chelsea (no disrespect Ross J), the press are doing their best to create their own stories – aka regurgitate old interviews to suit. You see, when you read his words back, they’re clearly in the present tense…..”we’re not going through…”, so just like Drogba’s behaviour (although we all accept he went too far), Terry’s words were probably heat of the moment stuff when like the rest of us, he probably wanted to strangle Ovrebo.

Is he right to worry about the captaincy though?

Filed under: Current Players, Rants, Rumours