Analysis - John Terry and his season so far

For once, Jose Mourinho caught the general mood, rather than one that just suits his own agenda. The Chelsea manager had been asked about John Terry’s form.

“I was not expecting it after the season he had last season,” Mourinho said. “I would like to see him play the same way he’s playing with us until the end of the season. The World Cup is with him and Roy [Hodgson].”

As regards that last point, there is obviously a lot of debate as to whether Terry should go to Brazil this summer. Much of it, of course, revolves around the idea of whether it would even be right for the Chelsea captain to return to the England squad after the Football Association panel found him guilty of “using abusive language” towards Anton Ferdinand which “included a reference to colour and/or race”. The fact that followed Terry being cleared of a racially aggravated public order offence the previous July only further complicates the issue.

One thing, however, is beyond debate: Terry’s form has radically improved over the past year. That is remarkable, given that it didn’t just seem like it was the defender’s reputation that may have been ruined by the end of 2012. There was also his career as a top-level defender. The red card against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final, which caused a Chelsea legend to miss the club’s greatest ever moment, seemed to reflect so much of the frustration in his game at that point.

He wasn’t quite as steady as he used to be, which was a complaint that continued into Rafa Benitez’s reign at Chelsea, as Mourinho referenced. By the end of 2012/13, it seemed virtually certain that the abrasive David Luiz had become the superior option at centre-half. Now, it would be ludicrous to argue that, and another game that Terry missed probably proved the point.

In the 66th minute of the fifth-round FA Cup tie at Manchester City, with Manuel Pellegrini’s side winning 1-0, Samir Nasri and David Silva attempted to weave their way through the Chelsea backline. Rather than keep an eye on his man, however, Luiz made the cardinal error of looking to the line and sticking his hand up for offside. In that fraction of a second, the City attack created sufficient space to seal the match.

 

It was the only time since 6 December that Chelsea have conceded more than one goal in a match. It was also the sort of mistake that an experienced defender like Terry simply wouldn’t have made, and those two aspects seem linked.

With the Chelsea captain back to his most assured, Mourinho’s side have developed what is by far the best defensive record in the Premier League, with just 22 goals conceded in 28 games. “He is a stable player, not someone who makes a lot of mistakes,” Mourinho explained recently. “He has a basic level of performance which gives stability to the team.” It is a quality, of course, that could particularly serve England given the manner in which Hodgson almost completely bases every system on a sturdy defence.

In that, it also reflects something of an alteration in Terry’s game. He is no longer quite so all-action, seemingly leaving a greater proportion of the old-fashioned hard-tackling to central-defensive partner Gary Cahill.

With just 0.9 tackles per game, Terry actually makes the joint fewest of all the primary English centre-halves. Where he leads the way, however, is with the notionally more ‘continental’ aspects of defending. Terry gets dribbled past or beaten – 0.2 times a game – on fewer occasions than any of the other candidates beyond Phil Jones, who has only played in that position only five times this season.

Even more notably, given the ongoing problem with this in the English national team and the way in which Hodgson will need his team to build from the back more, Terry has the best passing accuracy (89.7%) of everyone there. It has, for all his faults, been one of the under-appreciated aspects of Terry’s game: his technical soundness.

Now, with Rio Ferdinand so badly declining, there is a strong argument that the Chelsea centre-half is the best English centre-half. The truth is that Hodgson could do with him at the World Cup, even if that will not become a reality.