John Terry may be about to take his first tentative steps towards becoming Chelsea manager one day, after leaving his role as an assistant to Dean Smith at Aston Villa.
Crucially, the former Chelsea and England defender claims that he has already turned down a number of offers from "decent-sized" clubs to become their manager.
Terry has been at Villa for just over three years, joining the club's coaching staff straight after retiring as a player. During this time, he has assisted Dean Smith in transforming Villa from a struggling Championship outfit, to a mid-table Premier Leagu e side.
However, ambition seems to have gotten the better of the 40-year-old, who now states that he is very much ready to go it alone - in order to follow in the footsteps of former team-mates such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Sol Campbell.
While the Chelsea managerial position turned out to be something of a poisoned chalice for Lampard, Terry believes he could be the man to take over the West London club in the future.
In a revealing interview with The Times in May, he outlined exactly why becoming the Chelsea manager is top of his list of aims.
“My ambition is very, very clear,” Terry said.
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“There’s an end goal for me and that’s managing Chelsea Football Club. My team will be winning — hopefully — very honest, very organised, very well drilled, very well prepared and with a back four.
“I look at Lamps [Frank Lampard] and Stevie [Gerrard] and the success they’ve both had. Lamps in his first season at Chelsea, and what Stevie’s done up at Rangers is unbelievable. l probably wasn’t ready to go into coaching then. I am now. But I’m not just going to jump into anything. I’ve turned down two jobs since I’ve been here.
“Decent-sized clubs [too]. But it’s going to take something special for me to leave here. I’ve got one more year left at Villa. I’m in a privileged position because I’m in no rush. I want to be a No 1 but I’ll get there at some point.”
Fast forward to July, and Terry has decided that now is the time to step out of Dean Smith's shadow.
In a parting message to the Aston Villa fans, he outlined how personal ambition fuelled his decision to leave the club on the eve of such a defining season.
"It has been a tremendous honour and privilege to have spent these last three years at Aston Villa, but I feel now is the right time to make the extremely difficult decision to move on," Terry wrote on the the club's official website.
"It has always been my ambition to move into football management and, providing the right opportunity presents itself, I feel ready to take up such a challenge."
Quite where he ends up next is anybody's guess, but one thing we do at least know it is that it won't be Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
“Spurs is the only one I wouldn’t take. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be welcome at West Ham too," Terry emphatically stated.
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