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THE race the English Premier League title is a straightforward battle between defending champions Manchester City and European champions Chelsea, both of whom, he reckons, have no flaws. That is the opinion of John Terry who spent his entire playing career at Chelsea, something which I doubt will ever be seen again.
Today there is no longer loyalty to one club as players search for success and wealth. If they cannot get it with the club their career began with, then it’s off to greener pastures that will offer them just that.
One such player in question is Harry Kane of Tottenham Hotspur who is now in the middle of a tussle to get a transfer to Manchester City. Spurs, under new manager Nuno Espirito Santo, are rightly holding on to their talismatic striker as best as they can while executive chairman Daniel Levy has placed a huge price tag on the England striker to which City are not willing to match.
“Last season City played with a false nine and in Kane they will be getting a striker who can give them 20-25 goals a season. Kane has been the life and soul of Spurs and will be a big loss to them if he leaves. He’s been at Spurs for too long and being the honest person he is, will not upset the applecart in trying to leave.
“Spurs simply do not have the capabilities to reach the Champions League final again and their best chance to win the league was lost when they drew Chelsea in the that crucial game (in 2016).
“Spurs need to spend (big) and they haven’t done that,” says Terry, Chelsea’s most successful captain who left the club in 2017.
Terry, who made a special virtual appearance at an Astro function recently, feels that with Kane at City, it would be a completely different ball game which could well clinch it for them.
The Chelsea legend has high praise too for another City big money buy, Jack Grealish, who he has first-hand knowledge of since he was assistant head coach at Aston Villa until recently.
“I would rate Grealish to the likes of Eden Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne. Jack will be a huge miss at Villa who last season had no strength in depth,” stated Terry who believes Villa could battle for a Europa League spot this season.
Ruben Dias, Terry feels, is a complete player for City who had a stand-out season while John Stones too has come of age.
Terry who is through-bred Chelsea believes the addition of Romelu Lukaku, who has been re-signed by the London club, will see them push the Citizens all the way with a young exciting side that last week added the European Super Cup (a trophy Terry never laid his hands on) to the cabinet.
Lukaku, Terry believes, has unfinished business at Chelsea as during his first spell he was in some tough company for a first team spot and only managed 15 appearances without scoring.
But now with the valuable experience from his spells at Everton, Manchester United and Inter Milan (who he helped win the Serie A last season), the 28-year-old is perfectly primed to make his mark at Chelsea under manager Thomas Tuchel.
Terry says Lukaku will be a great asset now to Chelsea and that it is difficult to say who is the better between Kane and the Belgian as they are of a different breed. “Tough call”, he stated.
Terry may have been coaching at Villa but his heart is definitely at Stamford Bridge as he gives his thoughts.
N’Golo Kante, to Terry, is 11 players on his own and would love to see him win the Ballon ‘d Or and is such an asset to the club. He also has high praise for Mason Mount who, to him, is a future Chelsea and England captain.
Terry has fond memories of his visits to Malaysia (four times in total with Chelsea) and is amazed with the level of support for Chelsea. “It was incredible to see about 30-40,000 fans just to watch a training session.”
There is surely something to ponder about after the first round of matches over the weekend that saw Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool register convincing results while City crashed at Tottenham.
City certainly cannot be written off after just one match, evidenced by their exploits last season, but what fans can expect is possibly one of the closest title challenge ever. - The Vibes. August 16, 2021