England’s loss was Chelsea’s gain, however, and perhaps the lack of global football has helped Terry maintain his extraordinary fitness levels which saw him play every single minute of the 2014-2015 Barclays Premier League season.
Advertisement
Chelsea’s interim manager Rafael Benitez admitted he could not guarantee the central defender a regular first-team place as Terry fell out of favour. “We can play with two”.
He is quoted as saying by Sky Sports News: “I’m very happy with his first week”.
Falcao spent a largely unsuccessful spell on loan at Manchester United last season, where he managed to score just four goals in 29 appearances, failing to earn himself a permanent deal at Old Trafford.
Such is their quality that Chelsea often won games long before the end, but keeping Falcao in reserve for whenever they need a goal isn’t a bad option, and one that they might just find can get the best out of their new arrival.
“We had a very exhaustive analysis of his condition before we made a decision, our doctor had real work to investigate all of that”.
Mourinho stated that Falcao might not play as a lone striker like he did at United and could be used in a two striker formation with Diego Costa. For me, him and Harry Kane were the best players I came up against [last season]. I took Eden Hazard out so I was not too anxious about the result because if I was then I would keep Eden playing for 90 minutes and stick with my plan.
Terry said: “I honestly think Falcao is going to be a top, top player“.
“I just thought he was up for it that day and Gary felt the same”.
It will be interesting to see how Falcao gets on in the season ahead, as he is likely to have more game time than he did at United, purely because of the European fixtures Chelsea have to contend with. They went on to win the Premier League title that season and was named as the PFA Player of the Year by his fellow professionals.
Advertisement
“We did [have two upfront] against Barcelona for the last 20 minutes”.
