John Terry talks about his Chelsea future and Jose Mourinho
John Terry admits he is yet to decide whether he will remain at Chelsea beyond the end of his contract but has backed manager Jose Mourinho to reverse the club’s dismal early-season form.
Stamford Bridge skipper Terry’s current deal expires at the end of the season and the emergence of Kurt Zouma means his place in Mourinho’s starting XI is far from guaranteed.
But, speaking to former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher in an interview for the Daily Mail, Terry revealed he was happy to wait to determine his next career move.
“I think I’ll wait, yeah. I don’t know at the minute,” he said. “As you get older, you start to look down that route. I’m doing my coaching badges at the minute. I’m looking at TV. I’ve done some bits for Sky and BT.
“I have never known [how] players can go week after week not playing. This is the first time in my career where I have not been a regular in the team. I couldn’t see myself doing that for a year or two years.
“But, at the same time, I couldn’t even begin to think about being somewhere else or playing for someone else.
“Chelsea is my club. I’ve been here 20 years. I’ve looked into coaching. Playing-wise, [if I went to another club] it certainly wouldn’t be here [in England].
“America, maybe. But physically I feel like I can still play. Do I want to play? Of course I do. But then decisions come in to it with your family. What if you go somewhere and it doesn’t work out? Everything else comes into play, doesn’t it?”
Defending Premier League champions Chelsea sit 14th after a poor start to the season, but Terry supports the club’s decision to stand by Mourinho.
“If you look for stuff [that is wrong] you will find it,” he added. “You could sit there after a game and find a million things. I’d prefer to say ‘s**t result, let’s just move on’.
“I’ve had some managers who overanalyse things but nothing is there. Some will see that you have conceded goals at set-pieces, so they will practise 20 corners. It does nothing. If anything, it does the opposite. It highlights things and makes people worry. So the manager [Mourinho] has just been like ‘let’s get on with it’. The quality is there, everything is there.
“Listen, his [Mourinho’s] stability is massive for the club going forward. What the club have done is set a precedent and said he’s the man to take us forward. He will do.
“This squad of players won the league last season. There is no difference. It’s a bad run of form. Really bad.
“When you have been at the top for so long, it’s horrible. You don’t want to go out after games, you don’t want to show your face in public. It’s that level.”