Former Chelsea captain John Terry has announced that he has returned to the club to work in the academy.
Terry is a bonafide Chelsea legend, having won five Premier League titles, five FA Cups, three League Cups, the Champions League and Europa League with the club. He sits third on the Blues’ list of all-time record appearance makers, with 717, and was a near ever-present during the most successful period in the club’s history.
The 42-year-old retired from playing in 2018 and worked under Dean Smith at Aston Villa as assistant head coach for three seasons. He returned to Chelsea in January 2022 in a consultancy role before leaving in April to work under Smith once more at Leicester.
However, with the Foxes relegated and Smith replaced by former Manchester City assistant Enzo Maresca, Terry found himself out of a job. He has now delighted Chelsea fans by returning to Cobham, where he will work with the club’s young players.
“I’m delighted to be back Home working in the academy and continuing my role at the club,” he wrote on Instagram.
Former Chelsea players Deco and David Luiz both replied with clapping emojis, while Salomon Kalou wrote “JT” alongside some blue hearts and hand-raising emojis.
The announcement also received a warm response from Chelsea fans. “Yesss! Welcome back home king this is your home,” one wrote on Instagram. Another added: “Some players could learn a thing or two about loyalty from JT”.
“Where you belong,” one tweeted. Another wrote: “Proper Chels! welcome back JT”.
Terry’s return is another facet of the major changes taking place at Chelsea this summer. Mauricio Pochettino has arrived to take over as manager, while the club have undergone a major push to move on unwanted players.
Mason Mount, Cesar Azpilicueta, Mateo Kovacic, Kai Havertz, Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy, N’Golo Kante and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have all left the club in the opening three weeks of the summer transfer window, with Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic expected to follow suit.
Pochettino has been quick to establish his approach at the training ground. “Now we need to be competitive in the training ground or we are not going to arrive on time,” he said on Friday. “If you don’t move forward you are dead.
“I don’t want to make excuses to the players to say first of all we need time to rebuild, we need time to work, we need, we need, we need.
“No, no excuses and we start to work hard, to manage and drive the way that we want. No excuses. The competition doesn’t wait for anyone and now we are going to start again against Liverpool in the first game to be ready to win, and if not we are going to struggle for sure.”
