John Terry has given some fresh insight into the dressing room mentality that proved so successful for Jose Mourinho in his first spell in charge of Chelsea, with the former Blues captain admitting that the entire country disliked the team for several years.
Speaking on Sky Sports, Terry explained how the now Tottenham Hotspur head coach created a fortress mentality within his squad that even pitted them against their own club at times.
In the early days of Roman Abramovich’s reign, also marked by huge spending in the transfer market, Mourinho’s brash approach reaped significant rewards as Chelsea won back-to-back Premier League titles.
In a conversation with Jamie Carragher, in which the former Liverpool defender told a story of how Manchester United players once cheered when watching the Merseysiders defeat Chelsea, Terry, who is currently Aston Villa assistant coach, said: “We were probably disliked by the whole of the Premier League.
“With Roman coming in at the time and injecting the money that he injected, the players that he brought in and what Mourinho was about as well.
“It was like within the meetings that we had it was us against them. It was even us against our own football club. We wanted to build a fortress: everyone hates us.
“He blew that up within interviews but within that group he made us feel so together and connected we could beat anyone.
“Regardless of fear factors or how good other teams were, we always had a sense that we could go and win any game.”
