You should be proud of Terry - Villas-Boas
Published 22:30 28/10/11 By Mike Walters
Andre Villas-Boas has resorted to patriot games to defend John Terry, claiming: “You should be proud of your England captain.”
Terry leads Chelsea into Saturday’s lunchtime derby against Arsenal fighting to clear his name and save his international career amid the swirl of allegations that he racially abused QPR defender Anton Ferdinand.
Blues manager Villas-Boas admitted the accusation is “tremendously serious” - but repeated his insistence that the row was all “a big misunderstanding.”
Terry is facing a dual police and Football Association probe into claims he called Ferdinand a “f****** black c**t” during last weekend’s stormy west London derby.
If the mud sticks, he faces being stripped of the Three Lions armband for the second time in less than two years, the first was after he became embroiled in a sex scandal before the World Cup in South Africa.
But Villas-Boas said: “He is the England captain, the captain of your team and your country. You should be proud.
“I am proud of (Cristiano) Ronaldo - he is the captain of my team, Portugal. He takes us to a higher level in terms of representation.”
Asked if Chelsea’s black players had been supportive of their captain at training this week, AVB shrugged.
“There is no separation," he said. "All of the players have been quiet about it, because we know what happened - nothing happened, so there is nothing to discuss.
“For us, it has not been a distraction because it has been normal day-to-day life.
“Speculation on a negative situation is something that disappoints us. Maybe the scale of what has happened is due to speculation, in our opinion. It is tremendously serious, but that doesn’t mean it is not speculation or a big misunderstanding.
“I don’t think, for us, [that] it has been a distraction. We have not lost too much focus on the situation because there is nothing to lose focus on.
“For me, it’s the end of the matter, it’s under FA investigation and hopefully we can put an end to it.
"But I have no concerns about him [Terry] - not in the sense of his state of mind. Never.”
Terry, who is one yellow card away from an automatic ban for picking up five bookings, was rested for the midweek Carling Cup win at Everton but will face the Gunners.
And AVB is confident his skipper will not be singled out for stick from opposition fans.
“Everybody gets stick for various reasons," he said. "I don’t think he will get any more than usual.”
Villas-Boas, meanwhile, gave his unqualified support to English football’s anti-racism crusade.
“Discrimination, racism and xenophobia should all be outlawed," he said. "There is still room for improvement, but I think we are on the right track, particularly in this country with the campaigns that have been launched.
“We are all proud defenders of the anti-racism campaigns - the club and most of the players as well. We all have to continue to fight it and our players will always be available to fight these situations.
“I would also say that campaigns against these incidents should be based on gestures more than words, actions more than publicity.”
