TIME IS UP FOR JOHN TERRY

John Terry: Replaced at half-time against Man City

John Terry admits he feared being dropped from Chelsea starting line-up by Jose Mourinho for the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday.

Terry was surprisingly removed at half-time by Mourinho, the first time the Portuguese has substituted Terry in the Premier League during both of his spells at Chelsea.




Terry was replaced by Kurt Zouma with Chelsea trailing 1-0, but the substitution failed to improve matters. Chelsea eventually lost the game 3-0, the first time since 1998 that the club have failed to win either of their opening two league matches.


However, despite the shock at the captain's removal, the Daily Mail report that, actually, Terry may have been lucky to start the game at all.

In the build-up to the match, Zouma had been paired with Gary Cahill in training in order to account for the pace of Sergio Aguero. This was changed at the last minute on Friday.

The Mail's report claims that 'Chelsea's squad were left in no doubt he [Mourinho] was preparing to make some major calls on team selection'.

Gary Neville believes that Terry's role at Chelsea may now be changing.
"John Terry is 34, and this is going to happen," he told Sky Sports' Monday Night Football.
"He’ll wake up this morning and the world’s ending, his career’s over – but I saw Jamie Carragher sit on the bench for Liverpool for 18 months, I’ve seen the same with myself when I was substituted three times within 55 minutes in my last year at United.

"There will be certain games where, as a 34-year-old centre-back, other players will need to start to be phased in. My genuine belief is that it’s not the end of the world for John Terry. It was a big shock to him yesterday, and it’s almost like a public embarrassment – we’ve been there."

Neville's fellow Sky Sports pundit Niall Quinn, however, believes the substitution means it is the 'start of the end' for the Chelsea captain.