John Terry offering big compliments to Manchester United, that must be tough for him.
United were one of Chelsea’s biggest rivals when Terry was playing for Chelsea. He had some major ups, and some truly major downs and heartbreak in games against United. When he came up against them, he was ready for war. He did everything he could to try and beat them.
Terry has been out there this weekend offering big compliments to Manchester United after their win over Manchester City.
First of all, he was posting that Harry Maguire had a top performance and should be going to the World Cup with England this summer.
Then he was praising United for how they played under Michael Carrick at the weekend in order to get the win over Pep Guardiola’s possession obsessed football. No surprise to see Carrick playing this way because he also played during the same era of Premier League football as Terry, back when it was some of the most entertaining and enjoyable football I have ever watched and not seen anything like it since.
Terry on the Manchester derby:
“Wow! What a performance from Man United… this is the Man United of old. Attacking, free-flowing football, pace up front. So good to see Carrick get his opportunity.”
Attacking, free-flowing football.
Terry has made it clear in recent times that he doesn’t like slow possession based football where playing out from the back is used every time. We were all out here a couple weeks back asking why Terry wasn’t being considered for any coaching role at Chelsea or to be part of Liam Rosenior’s staff. Well, there is our answer, he just wouldn’t back that style of play or back playing out short from the back every time.
I saw this reaction from a fan, to Terry’s comments…
I’ve said a number of times before recently that clubs have found out how to play against Pep-ball, hence their continued ‘down-fall’. It’s a style of play that needs to develop and change if it wants to continue and keep relevant. Football evolves, and it’s evolving right now, we are in the midst of it, and some clubs risk being left behind. Will Chelsea be one of those?
Of course, possession-based football can have many different variations. It’s the slow side to side variation that many fans hate. Chelsea could develop a much faster variation of it to deal with the evolving styles of play.
In general though, football for me has just gone backwards with the style of play. And Terry is right here to mention that this United at the weekend was more like football of recent past.
In a Chelsea sense, let’s just see how Liam Rosenior gets us playing. But I’d encourage him to learn from Enzo Maresca and give Robert Sanchez and his team more freedom to both go long and short from kick outs. It just makes sense. Nobody is saying turn to ‘hoof-ball’, as again, we don’t want to watch that either – we can go to our local park on a Sunday morning and watch that. But balance in football should always come first and foremost in everything we do. Variation, unpredictability, and flexibility is key. Don’t let teams work you out.
Encouraging Chelsea not to ‘overplay’ out from the back, using Brentford as an example of NOT doing this… This guy knows his stuff, obviously.
Simon Phillips
