John Terry, quite contrary?

Well, lots has happened in football over the last week or so; some interesting upsets in the Carling Cup, the Pardew-Wenger incident, and a bit of this and that, but one incident that seems to have disappeared somewhat, is the sending off of John Terry in Chelsea's loss to Tottenham last weekend.



Now the foul itself is innocuous enough, but when Terry is getting up, he clearly says something to Ledley King. This infuriates two of the other Spurs' players - mainly Chimbonda and Zokora, with Aaron Lennon and King joining the fracas slightly later. So clearly what he has said really infuriated a group of Tottenham players (all of whom were black), to the extent that they are absolutely livid and chasing him up the field.

Terry, on his part, tries to avoid the confrontation entirely. Players are shoving him left and right, but he just walks away, and offers no argument or response or hesitation when Poll shows him a second yellow and then a red. In fact he seems more than happy to leave the commotion on the field behind.

So what did he say? What did he say that seemed to drive two Spurs' players absolutely ballistic, and cause such an incident? What could he have said to one player, that so offended so many others? We often see players involved in scuffles, but those are generally over things like bad tackles and fouls, very rarely do we see an exchange of words between two players affect others as well. OK, him and Ledley King go back a long way, and they "exchanged words", but what could these words between two "old friends" have been that they so enraged others on the team?

Well, no one knows. There are only rumours. If you have anymore information, please let us know in the comments. Some of the allegations are quite interesting, but getting into Chelsea's bad books is probably not the safest thing to do at the moment.

Terry himself now claims to be shocked by referee Graham Poll's decision, but why did he not say or do anything when walking off. We have seen him involved in enough confrontations and incidents in the past to know that if he was wronged, people would know. None of his teammates argued with the referee, or got involved with the brawl (Wright-Phillips pulled him aside, and Essien and Drogba went to hold Chimbonda and Zokora off and talk to them). Terry, Cole and Chelsea have done their best to discredit Poll in that article, but Poll at the same time has not helped by keeping quiet about it. There is too much confusion over the issue, and Poll has either been given orders to shutup, or feels like that is his best option.

No word has come from the Tottenham people either. Who knows what is going on? They have a strange relationship with Chelsea, but they are well aware of the power at Stamford Bridge, having accepted a quite large payoff from the West London moneymen over the poaching of their former Director of Football Frank Arnesen. The Terry incident is either a whole lot of something or nothing, but by the enraged looks of the Spurs players and the subsequent media hush after, it seems more like the latter than the former (allegedly, the forums at Football365.com have been banned from discussing the incident, can anyone confirm this?)

Chelsea don't need anymore dirt to deal with. Apart from their generally awful behaviour and lack of respect and decorum, there are some more incidents. Barcelona's African striker Samuel Eto'o claimed to have been racially abused when Barca lost at Stamford Bridge in 2004/2005. They have the Ashley Cole tapping up incident sitting on their heads, the John Obi Mikel "signing" scandal with Manchester United, as well as the poaching of Arnesen from Spurs and two youngsters from Leeds (all three clubs accepted massive payments to settle the issues). The last thing they want is a scandal involving their captain and only "home grown" player (the reason i'm sure why many Arsenal fans gave Ashley Cole the benefit of the doubt so often). Terry might seem like the angelic responsible role-model these days, but don't forget his nightclub scuffles, or him urinating into a pint glass at a pub, or just over 5 years ago when he and Frank Lampard (along with Eidur Gudjohnsen and Jody Morris) drunkenly misbehaved in front of grieving Americans at Heathrow Airport after the disasters of September 11th. Granted, he has grown and matured and become a fine player, but his character should still be open to question.

What has also been disappointing, if unsurprising, is the hush from the English media. Known for sticking their noses into everyone and everything, they have been noticeably quiet about this incident. Why? Well perhaps because John Terry is the England captain, and we all know how the English love their heroes. For years Alan Shearer's flying elbows were quietly ignored. Andy Johnson and Robert Pires and Cristiano Ronaldo are all divers, but when Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard collapse like wilting lilies in a slight breeze, well... they are just trying hard for the team. Double standards are the norm.

What is equally distressing is the Wenger-Pardew incident that has been getting all the coverage. To their credit, the media have been playing it up and have blown it nicely out of proportion. It seems to have taken centre-stage with the neutrals, taking the attention away from the Terry incident. Chelsea fans probably don't want to know or hear more about it, and Tottenham fans don't really care because they won, and everyone else is supposed to be wrapped up in Pardew vs Wenger. A childish manager over-celebrating a game-winning goal right in front of a much senior peer, who has just seen his side be denied a clear penalty and now lose the game. Pardew was silly and provocative, Wenger was silly and provoked. That's it. It was a minor scuffle, involving a few shoves and some words exchanged. Yet they've both been charged with improper conduct, while the Terry vs Spurs incident has not been investigated at all. For all we know, Terry will probably have the red card revoked, and will be given a kilo of gold and a new car instead.