John Terry has admitted that he found it ‘borderline offensive’ to have been passed over by Chelsea for the interim manager role in favour of academy colleague Calum McFarlane.
The Blues legend and former Aston Villa assistant manager has been outspoken at his disappointment about not having been able to play a role in supporting his club after the January departure of Enzo Maresca.
Terry worked alongside McFarlane as part of Chelsea’s youth set-up, but was not called upon by the club or the interim boss to support the first team in transition.
But although previously critical of Chelsea’s decision-making, Terry issued his fieriest condemnation yet.
Discussing the appointment of Liam Rosenior as the west London club’s permanent manager after McFarlane’s first interim spell on Sports Uncensored, Piers Morgan posited that the defender might have found it ‘borderline offensive that they would choose somebody so out of his depth, so amateurish, so kind of weird over someone like (Terry)’, considering ‘all (his) experience and the fact that blue blood runs through (his) veins.’
‘Now Piers, you’re 100 per cent spot on,’ Terry responded, before adding: ‘I’ve never thought that I could be Chelsea manager, (but) when a manager leaves the football club and Chelsea are looking for an interim manager, there was no one in the building, the academy building or the first team building, that was more qualified than me in terms of their qualifications.
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John Terry was in ‘100 per cent’ agreement with the idea that it was ‘borderline offensive’ not to be considered at Chelsea
His academy colleague Calum McFarlane instead oversaw two spells in charge following the departures of Enzo Maresca and then Liam Rosenior
‘More importantly, and above all of that, whether it was for one game or two games, there was no one more Chelsea than me. And again, touching (on) the supporters, (giving) the supporters what they wanted at that time.
‘Now, did I think that I deserve the Chelsea manager (job) long-term? Absolutely not. Because Chelsea is way bigger than me. If I want to go into that, I need to go on my journey to then get the Chelsea job.’
Calling back to an earlier conversation about whether English managers were championed sufficiently for domestic managerial roles, Terry stressed to co-pundit Simon Jordan that he had ‘spent four years doing (his) badges, travelling up and down the country.’
‘I spent three and a half years at Aston Villa being assistant to Dean Smith, living away from my family to enable myself to walk into a job or get a job. And I’m not talking Premier League level or Championship level.
‘The jobs I interviewed for were League One, and I still didn’t get the opportunity to go and do that.’
Morgan later argued that Terry could have been ‘Chelsea’s answer to Michael Carrick’ had he been given a chance to steward his former club even for a handful of games.
Terry previously confirmed that he had not been considered or discussed taking over on an interim basis with the club, despite carrying out a part-time consultancy role with the academy that sees him work with the under-18s and under-21s.
‘I am not sure what Calum’s backroom staff is going to look like, I have not had a call, I have not had a message,’ Terry told his TikTok followers after Rosenior was sacked in April, and McFarlane was handed his second spell in temporary charge.
‘I will be continuing my role in the academy, I will be in the academy tomorrow, a big couple of games coming up.
‘We will all get behind Calum, he did a great job away against Man City previously and we will get behind the boys because that is what we do.’
Daily Mail Sport was told at the time by someone close to Terry that he would have loved to work with Chelsea’s squad, and that the feeling might even be mutual inside the changing room.
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