Chelsea captain John Terry’s contract is expiring at the end of the season and the Blues need to do all they can to keep him, according to Arsenal legend Thierry Henry.
35 year old John Terry picked up a red card against Sunderland over the weekend in a match that could well be his last in a Chelsea shirt. The veteran defender has been at the club since 1998, when he joined from the West Ham United academy. During that time, he has won four Premier League titles, five FA Cups, a Champions League and a Europa League.
At the beginning of the year, Terry announced that there had been no progress in negotiations to extend his contract, which meant that this could well be the curtain call on his storied 18 year old Chelsea career. There has been some major debate on the decision to let Terry go and Sky Sports pundit and Arsenal legend Thierry Henry has vehemently expressed his incredulity at this decision.
“John Terry has to stay at Chelsea, as simple as that,” said Henry, according to the Daily Mail.
“No matter how he is going to stay, he has to stay, I don’t know why a manager would come here with zero experience of the league would let a guy like that leave the club. So I don’t understand.”
Antonio Conte could turn this decision around
Jose Mourinho didn’t seem too keen to extend Terry’s stay at Chelsea, even though they have had a close personal relationship since the manager’s first stint at Stamford Bridge. The Englishman was a fixture on the bench at the beginning of the season, but the sacking of Mourinho and arrival of Guus Hiddink helped Terry get back into the scheme of things. The injury to Kurt Zouma in February meant that Terry also saw a lot of first team action at the business end of the season.
The eventual arrival of Antonio Conte as the new manager next season could turn things around for John Terry, who would prefer to stay on. The Italian will need some experienced leaders to build his team around and could still convince the club to extend the 35-year-old’s contract, but we’ll have to wait and watch if Conte really rates Terry as much as Henry.
