“Terry also revealed that he had spoken to Jose Mourinho on Friday after Claude Makelele claimed, in his autobiography Tout Simplement, that the defender had fallen out with the manager because he was not being played often enough and that he had threatened to put in a transfer request. Makelele stated that this had helped Abramovich decide it was time to get rid of Mourinho.

“Funnily enough, Mourinho called me yesterday and we spoke about it,” Terry said of Makelele’s book. “It’s bizarre, actually, because he knows the real truth and, if anything, I was one of three players to be phoning Roman at 1am or 2am the night I heard Mourinho had been sacked to keep him on. Speaking to [chief executive] Peter Kenyon, speaking to Roman, speaking to Eugene [Tenenbaum, a Chelsea director] and hoping we could keep him. Myself, Lamps and Didier were all fighting to keep him. So it’s bizarre where it’s come from. I spoke with him [Mourinho] today and he’s totally fine with it. ”

While insisting that he did not have any say in Mourinho’s departure – “If I had that much power, I would have changed an awful lot of things at this football club an awfully long time ago” – Terry added that Hiddink’s time at Chelsea had shown that certain things needed to be improved upon. “Just little things that will make Chelsea Football Club better,” Terry said.

He also confirmed that Hiddink would continue to have a role, albeit an informal one. “I think he’ll have a big input, and a sit down with Roman Abramovich. They’re very close anyway. He’ll certainly tell Roman exactly what he feels, and rightly so. Hopefully those bad things at the football club will change but, as I say, it’s definitely not ‘goodbye’ to Guus. It’s the start of something.”

Of course, Nobby Stiles won a World Cup medal and a European Cup medal playing exactly the same way before Makelele was born….

oh, there I go again, thinking the game existed before 1993. Silly me :/

Cheers,
The Gaffer