John Terry is a Chelsea and Premier League legend known for his utmost professionalism and prolific performances during his playing career.
However, the England legend also had his ‘moments of madness’ off the field and has spoken expressively on one of such moments.
Speaking with Up Front with Simon Jordan, the former Chelsea captain, who oversaw one of the most successful eras in Chelsea history, revealed he once clashed with the club’s former manager Andrea Villas Boas following a controversial decision that did not sit well with senior players in the team.
According to him, Chelsea were making preparations to board a flight to Asia for a preseason tour when Villas Boas decided to reserve first-class seats in the airplane for junior players.
He added Villas Boas lost his face among the senior players then in the squad featuring the likes of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. The incident occurred in Villas Boas’ first real-time interaction with the players after he was signed by the club in 2011.
‘And we’ve got Josh McEachran, Nathaniel Chalobah, and a couple of other young players all in first class. And this was part of AVB going “no player is bigger than me, everyone’s the same”.
‘It turns out Lamps is flying out in first class and I’m flying back in first class. So if you fly out in first, you come back in economy, but basically it wasn’t good enough.
‘So, I’m going on the plane “no, we’re not going anywhere until these young players go back in economy and the first team players, that have built this club to where we are today, go back in first.”
‘We’re on the plane, people were up and down, AVB comes up “what’s the problem?” I go, “well, we’re not going anywhere until the young players move”. And to be fair to the young players, they’re going “this is really uncomfortable, we’ll go back”. And I’m going “no, it’s not your decision, he has to own it”.’
The fallout between John Terry, Chelsea senior players and Andrea Villas Boas’ was ominous of the Portuguese’ subsequent failure in the dugout at Stamford Bridge.
It was barely a year before he was sacked in March 2012 following a poor run of results that saw him win just 50% of his matches.
