John Terry denies Chelsea revolt, pins blame on players and rubbishes BBC report

John Terry has never heard a player say that he would rather lose than win, but said that if he did, the player would not be allowed out of the dressing room.

The Chelsea captain was responding to a BBC report that one first-teamer is so unhappy with Jose Mourinho that he wants the team to keep losing, after a run of form Terry said has “devastated” their coach. Terry said the team are “100 per cent behind the manager”, while also demanding that the dressing room “stays together”, as well as warning potential dissenters.

“I have never heard a player come out with those words,” Terry said of the specific allegation. “In my whole career, whether it has been going bad, or really bad. It is ridiculous that I have to sit here and talk about it. I have seen players’ faces with the disappointment after results, the feeling we have let the club, manager and fans down. The player [who wanted to lose] wouldn’t be let out of the dressing room, let’s be honest. It wouldn’t go down too well, would it?”

On a day when some players showed a united front with their manager, Cesc Fabregas denied he was the ringleader of a dressing-room revolt against Mourinho’s tactics and methods.

Terry then launched an emphatic defence of his manager, even though he has spent time on the bench this season. He insisted the club’s poor form was the fault of the players, rather than Mourinho. “The players will stand up and say – and I will personally – that we’ve not been good enough,” Terry said. “We’ve not played well enough and we take that on the shoulders.

“I’ve known him a long time and he’s always the same. He’s very demanding. He wants the players to win. He’s devastated after poor results, taking it on his own shoulders. But we’re the ones on the pitch who haven’t been good enough.”

Terry also defended Mourinho’s controversial post-match statements that have earned him a suspended one-game stadium ban from the Football Association.

“The fans want to see that passion, that he cares,” Terry added. “The manager has to put his face in front of the TV and that passion does come out. That is because he cares about this club.”

Chelsea have taken just 11 points from 11 Premier League games this season and Terry added: “He [Mourinho] is under pressure because of the way we are performing. We know we need to be better, collectively, for the club and for him. He will take a lot of responsibility and that is unfair. It is on all of us, not just him.”

Terry said that Mourinho was “by far and a long, long way” the best manager he had ever worked with and predicted that the Portuguese would outstay him at Stamford Bridge. “He will be in charge for the rest of the season and long after I have finished playing for this club,” he said.

Terry added that while he would accept media criticism from Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher over his form, he would not from Robbie Savage. “From players I’ve looked up to and played alongside, I take that on the chin,” Terry said. “When others speak, players who have not had a career, played at a really bad level in their career, Robbie Savage being one, no.”