Is Jose Mourinho right about John Terry?

It’s fair to say that in recent seasons John Terry hasn’t been flavour of the month for one reason or another. Under AVB and Rafa Benitez, JT was dropped from the team in favour of Cahill, Ivanovic or David Luiz and it was hard for him to deal with.

Of course we know he has his injury problems and suspensions along the way but for our club captain, it was hard to take. When questioned about his fitness he kept hearing the manager at the club towards the end of last season tell us he was struggling for fitness and had a knock here and there which Terry himself disputes and has done so on Chelsea TV. He maintains he was 100% fit and available for selection!

Talking recently and quoted here in the media, Jose Mourinho has spoken of the doubts he had about JT before he came back to the club for his second stint as manager. He talks of how he wanted to see for himself where JT was at this stage in his career. He said:

“He’s recovering his self-esteem. In the last few years he was not playing a lot, he had problems on the pitch, he had problems outside the pitch, he had suspensions for different reasons, he had injuries, he had managers who didn’t trust him enough. And it looked like, at a certain moment, his career was going in the wrong direction.

Even I was questioning, from far away, what was happening to this guy: physical problems, psychological problems, what is going on?

I’m happy he’s proving he’s still a top player. He plays in a position where age doesn’t make a huge difference. It’s a position where players rely more on positioning, on reading the game, and being in the right place at the right time. Experience helps.

You go to many clubs and top clubs and central defenders are 30 to 34. John is proving his quality. With what he did at Chelsea in the last decade, I think he deserves to be back on track.”

Mourinho is right about that position on the pitch. People often talk about Terry’s lack of pace but you have to agree than more often than not, he more than makes up for it with his positional awareness.

He reads the game better than most and if you compare JT to Luiz when we think of stepping in front of your attacker to nick the ball away and win possession then there is no comparison. He knows when to do it compared to Luiz who is still prone to mistakes.

How many times do we see crosses come into the box and headed or kicked away by Terry for being as Jose says “in the right place at the right time”?

It will be interesting to see how the club approaches contract negotiations with Terry with his contract expiring at the end of the season.

If he continues as he has been playing for the rest of the season, expect a deal to be done sooner rather than later!

What do you people think about JT and his performances so far this season? Is Jose right about him?

Carefree & KTBFFH!