John Terry: Jose Mourinho does not tell us to pressure refs
Sunday 15 March 2015 14:30, UK
John Terry has rejected claims that Chelsea players are encouraged to put pressure on referees by Jose Mourinho.
Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League against PSG on Wednesday night and their players came under heavy criticism from Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher for their part in the sending off of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Swede was dismissed in the 31st minute after clashing with Oscar as they both lunged for the ball and Carragher labelled Chelsea “disgraceful” for surrounding the referee.
Carragher also said that pressurising the man in the middle was a common trait of Mourinho teams, which triggered a response from the Chelsea boss, who said that Carragher had a short memory.
When asked by Geoff Shreeves in an interview for Super Sunday whether Mourinho encourages his players to put pressure on referees, Terry replied: “No, never. Not in his previous time here or his current time here.
“He’s the complete opposite. No manager I have worked under has insisted on that. When the captains sit down with the PFA and referees at the start of the season, it’s brought up and spoke about.
“It is a duty as captain to make that run (towards the referee). For me, being a centre-half, nine times out of 10 it’s a 20-30 yard run.
"And that’s not to go there to get people sent off or booked, it’s to go there and pull my players away and quickly move on with incident. The refs know that. They need someone to speak to on the field and the captains are the right person.”
