TERRACE TALK: Chelsea - Why are we letting Blues legend John Terry depart?
Come on, you’ve got to have a sense of humour, otherwise this team will absolutely drive you insane.
I know it was only Franchise FC but we took to the field with the confidence of last season.
There was an expectation that we would win and win easily at that — and so it proved — for possibly the first time this season.
Maybe Guus the Good has restored the self-belief that Jose the Terrible destroyed.
Maybe the players finally feel comfortable enough to return to their “normal” game after having got rid of the evil headmaster — who knows?
But the only news really this week is the bombshell that John Terry will be leaving Chelsea at the end of the season.
This doesn’t make any sense, especially as it seems that this is a club decision — that they have decided not to renew his contract rather than JT himself deciding that he wanted to move on.
To announce this now, at this point in the season, seems really bizarre.
We have effectively told the footballing world that come the end of the season, Chelsea FC will be desperate for a central defender, so prices will have doubled.
But why are we letting him go?
He has played the majority of games this season and played, on the whole, very well.
Has he not earned another year? Ivanovic, who has had a questionable season, has managed to secure another year so why not JT?
It seems a really peculiar decision.
Even if we got, let’s say, Stones to play next to Zouma, wouldn’t we need someone of Terry’s experience to mentor them until they are established?
We need him not just to ensure we have a competent defence but we have no-one of his stature to take over the captain’s responsibilities.
It will be the end of an era and it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
What makes me even more uncomfortable is my trepidation over who we will sign in his position.
I understand that January is not the time to buy big players — especially with an interim manager in place, but some of the players we have been linked with are, quite frankly, laughable.
But back to John Terry.
What makes this decision even worse is the way that the news was allegedly broken to JT — by “a third party”.
Hasn’t our most successful captain ever earned an audience with Roman?
To have such a monumental decision explained to him?
He signed professional papers when he was 14 and has been Chelsea captain for 15 years. He has led this club to everything that there is to win.
This is up there with sacking Ancelotti in a corridor at Goodison Park, giving Di Matteo the bullet at 3am having just returned from a European away game, and giving Mourinho his P45 following the club Christmas lunch — the people that run this club really need a few lessons in class.
Last season John Terry played every minute of every game for the champions, yet he isn’t worth a one-year contact.
We were willing to gamble millions of pounds on serial crock Falcao, yet we won’t give John Terry a one-year contract.
We throw away millions on players who we immediately put out on loan and never see again, yet we won’t give John Terry a one year contract.
It’s just madness.
Who has made this decision exactly? Given we have no permanent manager and Hiddink insinuated he wanted JT to stay.
I can’t help but look in Emenalo’ s direction. We are led to believe he selects many of our transfer targets.
If we really are giving “this individual” carte blanche, we really are on our way to hell in a handcart.
Bar a miracle Champions League win, it looks set to be sad end for a remarkable Chelsea legend.
But the supporters will not allow him to leave quietly.
We are eternally grateful for everything he has done for our club and we will ensure that he will gets the send-off such a giant of the club deserves.
He is, and forever will be, Mr Chelsea — our captain, our leader, our legend.
