Chelsea legend John Terry has revealed he had the opportunity to leave the Blues on two separate occasions during his 22 years at the club.

Huddersfield was the first team that offered him a move away from the Stamford Bridge early on in his career, but Terry said that despite the club accepting a bid from the Terriers, manager Gianluca Vialli blocked the move:

“During my time one of only two clubs that approached me were Huddersfield when I first came through. Steve Bruce was manager of Huddersfield. Chelsea accepted a bid and [Gianluca] Vialli said no. Which obviously I’m very thankful to Luca for, he gave me my debut. Great man, great manager.”

The next approach came in 2009 following Sheikh Mansour’s takeover of Manchester City. Terry was in the midst of contract negotiations at the time, and he told Roman Abramovich he would not leave Chelsea under his own volition:

“Man City approached Chelsea, made an offer official. Simple as this, I sat with the owner, face-to-face and said ‘I never want to leave Chelsea, that’s a fact. If you want to sell me then it’s a different story. But I’m telling you off the bat that I never want to leave this football club’ Within that, I was due a new contract, we shook hands on a new contract, agreed a deal and I stayed another five, six years after that.”

Fans will be heartened to hear that Terry never considered leaving the Blues during the prime of his career. He will go down as one of the club’s greatest ever players, having made 712 appearances, winning five Premier League titles, the Champions League, the Europa League, five FA Cups and three League Cups.