Captain, leader, legend. But John Terry has never realised his post-playing retirement dream of managing Chelsea and has caused bewilderment within the club after claiming he was “frustrated” at being overlooked for the caretaker role this season.
It is almost eight years since Terry hung up his boots and five years on from earning his Uefa Pro Licence. But the club’s most successful captain is yet to manage a single game for Chelsea – or any other club outside the Baller League for that matter.
Terry was an assistant at Aston Villa when he became a fully qualified coach and had already been overlooked for a role within Frank Lampard’s backroom staff by then.
Since Terry got his Pro Licence in the summer of 2021, Chelsea have appointed four permanent coaches, with a further three taking interim charge of at least one game – two of whom were Bruno Saltor and Calum McFarlane, who holds a Uefa B badge. The other was Lampard, who brought Ashley Cole back to the club with him on a temporary basis.
It was the latest change, when full-time under-21 coach McFarlane was put in caretaker charge of two matches – against Manchester City and Fulham – before Liam Rosenior was appointed permanent head coach, that disappointed Terry.
Asked by the Golf Life YouTube channel if he was annoyed by the decision, Terry replied: “Not annoyed, probably more frustrated, because I was certainly part of that under‑21s group that went over.
“So even if I didn’t take the team … Calum took the team, did really well, got a result out of the [Manchester City] game. I feel like I should have been part of that.
“Now listen, people have got to make decisions. I love it when people make decisions and they go ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Clearly the ownership, or whoever made those decisions – the sporting directors – have gone ‘no’ not to include me, for whatever reason. I don’t know why.”
Terry first returned to work at Chelsea in an academy consultancy role shortly after quitting his job as one of Dean Smith’s assistants at Aston Villa in July 2021.
On leaving Villa, Terry said: “My immediate plan is to spend some quality time with my family and, thereafter, hopefully take up some invitations to visit clubs and managers around Europe to develop my aim and objective of becoming a manager.”
Had he stayed on a few more months, Terry may have been given the chance to take caretaker charge of Villa or even been given a crack at the permanent job after Smith was sacked.
Terry briefly left Chelsea to take a short-term job as an assistant to Smith at Leicester City in 2023, before resuming his role at Chelsea, where it is understood that the 45-year-old works two days a month with the academy.
Chelsea’s current BlueCo owners renewed Terry’s rolling contract, despite a summer reshuffle of the academy in 2024 which resulted in Neil Bath, who had originally been responsible for bringing Terry back, and Jim Fraser leaving the club.
It was only last August that Terry told The Sun newspaper that he had given up on becoming a manager, saying: “I’m done in terms of coaching. I’m enjoying my life, I’m working in the Chelsea academy.”
He added: “I don’t really coach at the moment, I’m a mentor, ambassador. I went for a couple of jobs and those days are gone for me. I’m enjoying my life a little bit, I’ve got my time to myself, I play a bit of golf, I’m in the academy and I have some family time as well. It’s a really good balance for me.”
It is understandable, therefore, that Terry’s latest claim of being “frustrated” at not being part of the caretaker coaching staff this season has caused some bewilderment within Stamford Bridge.
Furthermore, and not necessarily through any fault of his own, putting Terry in interim charge after Enzo Maresca’s departure would have created a media circus around the club at a time when Chelsea were in danger of the season unravelling and were working to make a quick, permanent appointment.
Rosenior deemed McFarlane’s work impressive enough to promote him to part of his backroom team, which justified the club’s decision to hand him the temporary reins. But any decision over Terry’s long-term future within the first-team set-up would have been far more difficult, given his status and popularity among the fans.
During his days at Cobham, Terry has been known to eat in the first-team canteen and stay behind to have a game of darts. His part-time presence around the club has been viewed as a positive by Rosenior, with whom he used to share the same agent.
Rosenior said: “When you have people around the club... John [Terry] is a legend. When you have people with the experiences and trophies that John has won, it is an amazing thing for Reece [James] to tap into.”
Maresca may have been less enthusiastic about Terry’s criticism of the approach during the defeat to Leeds United at Elland Road in December, although internally at Chelsea it was acknowledged that some of the former defender’s observations carried merit.
Outside Chelsea, sources at rival Premier League clubs have questioned whether it is appropriate for an employee – even one who works two days a month – to publicly offer his opinion on team matters or decisions made by the board and sporting directors.
It would almost certainly not be tolerated from a “regular” member of the Chelsea academy set-up, but Terry’s glittering playing career and service to the club has afforded him a privileged, and almost protected, position at Stamford Bridge.
Aside from his part-time consultancy role within Chelsea’s academy, being with his family and playing golf, Terry has set up his charitable foundation, which will benefit from the sale of £120,000-worth of prized football mementos, including his 2012 Champions League final “full kit”.
He has also managed the “26ers” – a team named after his own squad number – in the Baller League indoor six-a-side tournament.
Terry is Chelsea’s most successful academy product, having made 715 appearances, winning five Premier League titles, five FA Cups, three League Cups, the Champions League and the Europa League.
But, fairly or unfairly, he does carry baggage that could make his appointment as head coach, effectively making him the main figurehead, complicated for Chelsea or any other club.
In the same press conference in which Rosenior praised Terry’s influence on players such as James, he also stated that anybody found guilty of racist behaviour in football “shouldn’t be in the game”.
Terry was cleared of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand by Westminster Magistrates’ Court in 2012. He has always denied directing racist language at Ferdinand, but he was found guilty by the Football Association of “using abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour towards Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand and which included a reference to colour and/or race”. That resulted in a four-match ban and a £220,000 fine.
Although far less serious, there have been other situations that would have been diplomatically difficult for a club to negotiate with Terry as manager since he gained his Pro Licence. A legal intervention from the Premier League resulted in him removing the competition’s trophy from the cartoon ape non-fungible tokens he promoted. And last November, he joined a campaign for the release of the UK’s most notorious prisoner Charles Bronson. It is not inconceivable that Terry could have been asked to explain his backing for Bronson in a Chelsea press conference if he had been made interim head coach this season.
Those who know him well insist it is his decision-making, rather than his character or intentions, that has at times caused Terry problems and impacted on his public image outside his large base of loyal Chelsea followers.
Whatever his role and for better or for worse, Terry and Chelsea will always be joined at the hip. But he currently seems destined never to live his dream of managing the team – even for just one game.