John Terry enjoyed a hugely successful career at Chelsea and dreamed of one day becoming their manager, but he has yet to secure a top management job after retiring.
John Terry admits he still has dreams of becoming Chelsea manager, but admits “I don’t know if it will ever happen” and wonders why the opportunity never came his way.
The former defender enjoyed a trophy-filled career as a player, winning the Premier League four times with the Blues. He also won the Champions League and FA Cup multiple times.
Terry was part of a “golden generation” of England players, many of whom found their way into management through their playing exploits. Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney are in the dugout, as is Terry’s former teammate Frank Lampard.
He currently manages Championship leaders Coventry, but took over at Chelsea just a year after taking over at Derby. Terry sought to gain experience, spending three years as an assistant at Aston Villa from 2018 to 2021. He then worked as a coaching consultant at Chelsea before moving to Leicester City.
He is at Chelsea as an academy coach but has to accept that the top job may never come his way. He said in a TikTok video: “To be honest, I don’t know if it will come true. This is my last dream at a football club. I did everything at Chelsea and now what I’m missing is to be the manager of a football club.”
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“That’s why I went into coaching after my playing days. My idea and my dream was to learn a little bit about my trade. When you retire for 22 years as a player…listen, 100 percent, you learn enough to go into management. The level I played at and the managers I played under. But a certain level doesn’t entitle you to go into management. You have to learn and understand what it takes.”
“There’s a lot more to the coaching side. So I went away and learned my trade. I had an incredible time at Villa and left Villa to be number one. I thought I was ready. I think I could be a really good number one. I enjoyed the coaching side.”
“You want to have better coaches around you than you, so you can lead the dressing room and the team like I did (as a player). That’s what I’ve been doing for 22 years at the club. I know I can be good. Will I ever get a chance? You won’t know until you try something else. But when you say you don’t have experience, it’s hard to understand.”
Chelsea have gone through a number of managers in recent years and have adopted different strategies. They had big names like Thomas Tuchel and Mauricio Pochettino, but they turned to Graham Potter, who made the most of his resources at Brighton. Current manager Enzo Maresca was appointed on the back of winning the Championship title with Leicester.
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