Terry names the one Prem side capable of beating Pep’s Man City

John Terry believes that Jose Mourinho’s early Chelsea side would have beaten the Premier League’s current dominant force Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City side are currently 11 points clear at the top of the table, having won 16 games in a row and also remain unbeaten so far.

Terry’s Chelsea side of 2004 to 2006 won two titles under Mourinho, and still hold the record for the highest points tally in a Premier League season (95 in 2004/05).

And speaking on Sky’s Monday Night Football, the ex-Chelsea star explained how he believes that Blues team would have toppled the current City one.

Asked which side would compete with City, Terry said: “I would say 2004/05 or 2005/06, those first two sides when Mourinho arrived at the club.

“We were never afraid to say: ‘They’ll have more possession than us,’ but we were set, comfortable.

“The full-backs [William Gallas and Paulo Ferreira] would always go up the pitch, and [Claude] Makelele would always sit, which was great for us centre-backs.

“But we had great legs, great power, and we had the big man up front. Didier [Drogba] made such a difference. We had that ball into Didier, and he could hold it up, with the runners off him [Damien Duff and Arjen Robben] and [Frank] Lampard would be box-to-box game after game.”


PIC: Courtesy of Sky Sports

Though Terry was confident that the Chelsea team of that era would have caused City huge problems, he also admitted that they would have struggled to “bully” sides in the modern game.

The Aston Villa star believes that with stricter refereeing it is harder to ruffle opponents physically, but also believes that the pace and power of top-flight players has seen a big improvement.

He added: “Probably not as much nowadays, you certainly wouldn’t get away with as much, but also I’m not sure you’d get near some of them now, the pace of Sane, De Bruyne, Sterling as well, blimey.

“The way the game is going and has gone, everyone has so much pace and power.

“As a Chelsea side we felt we could go and bully most sides, but I think these can compete with the physical side of it, and they have something different going forward.”