Manchester City increasingly confident they will sign John Terry

Manchester City are increasingly confident they will tempt John Terry away from Chelsea despite the new contract being dangled in front of the England skipper.

While Terry returned to Chelsea's Cobham training headquarters for his first meeting with new coach Carlo Ancelotti yesterday, no members of the Blues high command were there to welcome him.

And that has left City officials convinced it is a 'matter of time' before Terry is unveiled as the shock transfer upset of the summer.

Terry arrived at Cobham 90 minutes before Chelsea's 5pm training session in time to have his first face-to-face conversation with Ancelotti.

The Italian had seemed at ease two hours beforehand as he presented new signing Daniel Sturridge to the media, with Ancelotti insisting: "I will see John Terry and speak to him, but there's not a problem."

Chelsea were equally determined to stress that Terry is going nowhere, despite the £30million bid and £250,000 per week City are ready to put on the table to lure the England skipper to Eastlands.

Yet Terry is understood to be concerned that Chelsea's inability to attract a star name recruit so far this summer suggests they are no longer as ambitious as they were in the first years of the Roman Abramovich era.

When the captain named Franck Ribery and David Villa as his wish-list summer targets after the FA Cup Final, it was with the expectation that incoming boss Ancelotti would be handed the financial wherewithal to rejuvenate the squad which came so close in the Champions League and Premier League over the past two years.

The arrivals of Sturridge, Ross Turnbull and £18m Yuri Zhirkov have not been what Terry envisaged, leading him to harbour growing doubts over where the Blues are headed.

Chelsea had hoped the offer of a £25,000 per week rise would be enough for Terry to make a clear signal of his willingness to enter negotiations and dismiss the idea of leaving the club.

But with City maintaining they have been given assurances from sources close to Terry that he is ready to consider leaving the Bridge to become the figurehead of the Eastlands outfit, the absence of the Chelsea top brass at Cobham was seen as a further sign of estrangement between the player and the Blues.

City are understood to be taking huge encouragement from the lack of a public vow of loyalty to Chelsea by Terry while also claiming the Londoners have not told them directly to stay away from the player.

That comes despite Chelsea's announcement last week they had rejected City's second bid for Terry but a third, likely to be around £35m, is now being prepared if the smoke signals remain encouraging from a City perspective.

City are ready to wait "as long as it takes" up to the August 31 transfer deadline to get their man, in a mirror image of Chelsea's own drawn-out pursuit of Shaun Wright-Phillips from the Eastlands club four years ago.

And if Terry does not sign a new contract or make a statement to guarantee he will not be leaving, City will push the button on a third all-out assault.

The ongoing Terry saga came as Sturridge, who ran down his City contract to come to Chelsea, explained he did so because of his desire to join a club that is already set up to win silverware.

Sturridge turned down a £60,000-per-week offer to sign a Chelsea contract worth £500,000 per season less but explained: "I'm not motivated my money.

"I'm not driven by money. I'm motivated by doing things in the game, winning trophies and hopefully becoming one of the great players in football history.

"City are going from being a good club to a very big club but I am at Chelsea to better myself and become a man. My goal is to become one of the great players and I feel I can do that at Chelsea."

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