Player power? John Terry reveals what he did to this former Chelsea manager who tried to embarrass him, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba

Posted By: THE REAL CHELSEA FANS April 25, 2024

John Terry and AVB

Chelsea legend John Terry has revealed a standoff that happened when Andre Villas-Boas was Chelsea manager.

The senior players at the time were accused of player power, but John Terry doesn’t think so. Terry has revealed that Andres Villas-Boas didn’t handle the senior players properly.

Terry recounted one time when several young Chelsea players were promoted to first class while senior players were demoted to economy class during a pre-season trip.

“There’s all these kind of rumours that player power was too big – it wasn’t, it genuinely wasn’t,” Terry said on Up Front with Simon Jordan podcast.

“When I was there were managers in charge, so Mourinho was in charge, anything higher than that Abramovich was in charge, it was very clear for us group of players.

“Anything in the dressing room was my, Lamps, Didier [Drogba], the senior players’ responsibility to control that, it was very clear.

“So when AVB came in, I’ll give you a little story, we went to Hong Kong when he was first manager, we get on the plane and I’m sitting in economy on a 13-hour flight.

“And we’ve got Josh McEachran, Nathaniel Chalobah, a couple of other young players all in first class. And this was part of AVB going, ‘no player is bigger than me, everyone’s the same’.

“I get on the plane, it turns out Lamps is flying out first class and I’m flying back in first class. So if you fly out in first you come back in economy but basically it wasn’t good enough.

“So, I’m going on the plane, ‘no, we’re not going anywhere until these young players go back in economy and the first-team players, that have built this club to where we are today, go back in first’.

“We’re on the plane, people were up and down, AVB comes up, ‘what’s the problem?’. I go, ‘well, we’re not going anywhere until the young players move’. And to be fair to the young players, they’re going, ‘listen, JT, this is really uncomfortable, we’ll go back’. And I’m going, ‘no, it’s not your decision, he [AVB] has to own it’.”

Andres Villas-Boas joined Chelsea in 2011 but lasted just under nine months as manager before he was sacked following a run of just three wins in 12 Premier League games.