Terry puts the affair to bed

FOR the second time in a little over a week, John Terry caused a flurry of late activity in newspapers offices up and down the country.

This time, though, it wasn’t an injunction, or even a super injunction that caused the frenetic re-drawing of pages and hurriedly re-writing of headlines.

There wasn’t a lawyer – or a marker for that matter – in site when the Chelsea skipper rose to head home Frank Lampard’s late corner, to the delight of the 2,000 supporters in the away enclosure and the quiet satisfaction of dozens of sub-editors hunched over computers bashing out dodgy puns about Terry playing away and scoring.

They would, however, have had to go some way to beat the witty refrain from Burnley fans that cut through the cold East Lancashire air in the wake of the defender earning a yellow card for a blatant first-half body-check on Robbie Blake: ‘Same old Terry, always cheating’.

Having for the past month used as their motivation the fact that many pundits predicted their season would disintegrate due to the African Cup of Nations commitments of several key members of their squad, it appears Chelsea have another cause, whatever your stance on its moral merits, on which to sharpen the sense of the siege mentality within the camp.

On the face of it, Terry’s tangled private life, which if presented as a plot-line for the next series of Footballers’ Wives would be dismissed as being too far-fetched, appears to have acted as a galvanising factor in their efforts to return the Premier League title to Stamford Bridge for the first time in four years.

“John showed a lot of character because it’s not an easy situation for him, but he’s been brilliant,” said Petr Cech, the goalkeeper whose 40-yard throw paved the way for Nicolas Anelka to break the deadlock with a close-range finish midway through the first half, the Frenchman’s sixth goal in as many games, though curiously, his first on the road in the league this season.

Carlo Ancelotti described Terry’s goal seven minutes from the end as possibly the most important of Chelsea’s season, before revealing he would be passing-up an opportunity to visit the Emirates yesterday, preferring to watch Arsenal and Manchester United do battle from the comfort of his armchair at home.

A sixth consecutive victory proved the ideal way to start a testing spell of five games in a fortnight which will go a significant way to defining Chelsea’s season. Next stop, Hull, where Ancelotti confirmed Terry will once again lead the side.

“We have to take advantage of our game in hand,” Cech added. “If we win that one we open up a gap at the top and then the ideal scenario for us is to see our rivals start dropping points.”

When Steven Fletcher took advantage of some lax defending from Alex to fire his 10th goal of the season past Cech at the outset of the second-half, it appeared the hosts might add to the tally of four points they had taken from United and Arsenal this season. That was until they gave Terry the freedom of the penalty area to pick his spot and deny them a chance of climbing out of the bottom three.

Ancelotti added: “United lost here, Arsenal dropped points, so maybe it’s a sign of the destiny of the Premier League title?”

Burnley’s ambitions are rather less lofty. “This is not an easy place to come as Chelsea discovered,” insisted Leon Cort, after a steady debut following his move from Stoke City.

“There were a lot of positives,” Cort added. “We’ve got some winnable games coming up and we all want to stay in this division. We’re all up for the fight.”

MATCH RATING: **** – Burnley’s second-half transformation made a game out of what was heading for a damp squib, but they never did quite enough to suggest they would end up making the bookmakers who installed them as 9-1 in this two-horse race pay through the nose.

REFEREE: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire): 4/5 – Let the game flow with a series of astute advantages in one of the most impressive Premier League refereeing displays of the season.