John Terry ‘never got on with’ Rafa Benitez at Chelsea and banned him from talking about Liverpool
CHELSEA legend John Terry “never got on with” Rafa Benitez – and had to ban him from talking about Liverpool.
The former Newcastle boss didn’t see eye to eye with the Blues skipper during his six-month spell at Stamford Bridge in the 2012-13 season.
Terry, now 42, went on to make 717 appearances for Chelsea, scoring 67 goals during a trophy-laden 19 years in West London.
At Stamford Bridge he won five Premier League and FA Cup titles, and led the club to victory in the 2011-12 Champions League.
And he secured the Europa League trophy with the Blues at the end of Benitez’s reign.
But despite the glittering success, Terry has revealed that he butted heads with the Spaniard from the offset.
Benitez was appointed as interim manager after Roberto Di Matteo was axed despite a long standing rivalry with the Blues which had been bubbling away since 2005.
The Chelsea legend told “From a tactical point of view I was looking forward to working with him.
“You could say he was quite successful, we won the Europa League under him, of course, but for me personally you want to develop and learn.
“I’d seen tactically how he’d set up against us previously and stuff. Like everything, you give everyone a fair chance and it’s down to them to prove to you otherwise.”
The Spaniard had a feud with ex-Blues boss Jose Mourinho after Liverpool knocked Chelsea out of the Champions League semi-final, thanks to a controversial Luis Garcia goal.
Benitez spent six years at Anfield, winning the Champions League and FA Cup along the way, and Terry says he eventually had to ask Benitez to stop bringing up his success with the Reds.
He added: “We just didn’t get on from day one personally, to be honest.
“Every meeting we had it was, ‘Oh we used to do this at Liverpool and we done this’.
“You laugh but that’s what he used to be like, ‘Just move a yard here’,
“I actually had to have a few conversations and say, ‘Gaffer, you have to forget Liverpool, you can’t keep saying ‘we’, you’re at Chelsea now, it’s not going down well with the lads’”.
Terry was often benched by Benitez despite being one of the most influential players in the squad at the time.
He added: “We didn’t get on from day one, he left me out at certain times, I didn’t play much under him.
“I was injured when he arrived, and then I struggled to be fair. I was out for probably six weeks, but then I was working back towards fitness.
“I played in a couple of games, away at Fulham, scored two, he dropped me for the next game. It was all those little bits that added up.”