Five minutes plus added time to go, and trailing 1-2 at home to Palace, John Terry pulled on his bib and went for a jog.
It’s not clear whose idea it was for Chelsea’s non-playing captain to canter off towards the Matthew Harding End, but the reason behind it couldn’t have been clearer. There was no way on earth, given the way the cards were stacked, that Terry would see action that afternoon, and his late burst of activity was all about playing the crowd.
First, his adoring public called his name, before the defender urged support for the team and a stirring ‘Chelsea! Chelsea!’ followed. It managed to escalate the atmosphere from tepid to electric, even if it didn’t produce the momentum required to grab Chelsea the draw which Conte later said they had probably deserved.
Terry’s role at Chelsea, this season, has been that of the totem. Dressing room sources talk of his positive influence around the team, and the way that Conte loves to have him in the building. But they are also very quick to point out that any chance of a seamless drift from subs’ bench to technical area is out of the question.
Terry has been taking his badges, but he is no qualified coach. And Conte, who believes in the absolute height of discipline and professionalism in all aspects of what he does, will simply not have the space for a crowd pleasing coaching appointment – regardless of how popular it might be.
While there was, last season, the chance of just such an appointment under Guus Hiddink – Blues came close to drafting in Didier Drogba until Montreal Impact suffered the wrath of their fans – it won’t be happening under the current order. And, besides, Terry is well down the pecking order when it comes to ex-players with coaching credentials: Jody Morris, Eddie Newton and Tor Andre Flo are all already in hands-on coaching roles at Cobham, with a better claim to such a berth.
If Terry is to stay another season at Chelsea, and the belief here is that no decision will be taken until this campaign is over, then it will have to be in a playing role, and one that involves hardly any game time. He can be a back-up – in all honesty a back-up to a back-up. And he can be an experienced hand in the dressing room. Plus, as we saw against Palace, he can be a cheerleader.
But he cannot, at any stage in the near future, be a coach at Chelsea.
Chelsea’s John Terry and Gary Cahill arrive for the matchReuters
There is a strong feeling that he will remain true to his long-stated promise that he will play for no other side in the Premier League, and most of the talk, should he move on in the summer, involves China. Thus it will probably come down to this: a further reduction to his Chelsea salary or the chance to earn his cash in somewhere like Shanghai – and probably in a quantity that is between three and five times what he presently takes home.
There seem to be open minds all round on what would be the best thing for his long-term stated aim of becoming a coach at Chelsea. In a way a bit of breathing space, a new set of surroundings and exposure to different methods and cultures may actually be of more benefit than staying put.
But for Terry this is very much a period of punctuation: between playing the game, and instructing others how to do just that. And it may be quite some time before we get an idea of what the next major phase of his football career will look like.
