John Terry, the Chelsea captain, may be seeking a new
challenge according to the Manchester City manager, Mark
Hughes.
Mark Hughes
broke his silence on the John Terry
affair today to speak of his confidence that the England captain
wanted to join Manchester City
and publicly question whether the man who has portrayed himself as
Mr Chelsea needed
"a change of scenery" for the good of his own career.
Hughes described Terry as an "outstanding player and an
outstanding person" and made it clear that City had targeted him
because they had received information that he was agitating to
leave Stamford Bridge. The City manager accepted there were some
players in the world, such as Steven Gerrard and Lionel Messi, who
could never be persuaded to leave their clubs but argued that Terry
did not fall into that category and painted a picture of the
28-year-old beginning to feel stale at the place where he has spent
his entire career.
"We would like to think we could offer John a different
challenge," Hughes said. "He's been at Chelsea a long time and I
know from my own experience as a player that when you have been
with a club for a long time you get to a point when you think you
need a new challenge and that a change of scenery would re-ignite
certain things within you.
"It is not a question of finance, or money, it is about a
different challenge, and John being at a different stage in his
life and his career, and maybe that is why there hasn't been a
response [to commit himself to Chelsea] because John is seriously
thinking in those terms. I went through that process myself as a
player and I can understand if that is the way he is thinking."
Those remarks will inevitably go down badly at Stamford Bridge
at a time when Chelsea are aggressively trying to repel City's
advances and have not wavered from their public stance that Terry
is not available at any price. Hughes, however, felt sufficiently
emboldened to question whether Terry recognised City were "on the
cusp of something" and he was speaking from a position of strength
after several months of detailed inquiries behind the scenes to
ascertain the defender's exact position.
The last message Hughes received was on Monday morning when he
was reliably informed that Terry wanted, if possible, to leave
Chelsea in as dignified a way as possible but that, were it
necessary, he was also willing to force through a move. City's
information, as revealed by the Guardian in February, is that he
has become disillusioned about Chelsea's perceived lack of ambition
in the transfer market and the frequency with which the club have
changed managers. Information has also reached City that he has
difficulties with several other members of the dressing room and,
as Hughes indicated, that he feels like his career needs a new
challenge. The huge sums of money on offer cannot be overlooked,
with City willing to make him the highest-paid player in the
Premier League
on around £250,000 a week.
City have spent £54m on Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz and
Gareth Barry this summer and Hughes's spending will go through the
£200m mark if, as expected, the club complete the £25m signing of
Emmanuel Adebayor today. The fee has been agreed but Adebayor has
asked for permission to sleep on it. The Togo international is
worried how the move would be perceived in Africa but Hughes is
confident of getting his man. "It's well documented that we moved
away from Samuel Eto'o and decided we wanted Adebayor, and it's
quite close."
City's next move will be to inform Chelsea they are willing to
pay in excess of £30m for Terry. On two separate occasions Hughes
pointedly described Terry as being a Chelsea player "at this moment
in time" and the manager added: "We know there are other areas of
the team we need to address now. We've made an offer to Chelsea and
I've made my feelings known in terms of my respect for John Terry.
I think he's an outstanding player and an outstanding person. I've
thought that since I first met him when he was a young boy at
Chelsea and I was a player there, and if the opportunity has
presented itself to bring a player of that calibre to the club we
will try our hardest to do it. We've already had conversations with
Chelsea to that regard and we would like the opportunity to speak
to John Terry now."