Premier League: Chelsea to benefit from JTs international retirement

Former England captain John Terry will play for the Three LIons no more

Ralph Ellis tells us why Roberto di Matteo will be a happy manager this morning, and why England's loss will be Chelsea's gain with the news that John Terry has retired from international football...

If there is one man who will be secretly rather pleased this morning that John Terry has decided to quit international football then it will be Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo.

Don't expect him to admit it, of course. He'll have to show great sympathy with his skipper, and make sure the club stand by him during this week's FA hearing. But when the dust settles, and even if Terry ends up serving a long suspension, it will be Chelsea who end up as the only winners from the whole tawdry affair.

I don't propose to discuss the rights and wrongs of Terry's clash with Anton Ferdinand here. It happened nearly a year ago. Terry was cleared of racially abusing the QPR defender, but the evidence heard in court in the summer suggested that neither should be proud of the foul mouthed insults they exchanged. Everybody will have their opinion. Some will side with Terry and see it as a shame that the incident has brought a premature end to his international career. Others will be glad that a man with a history of controversy will no longer wear the Three Lions.

I suspect Di Matteo's view will be more pragmatic. He will just be rather glad that his 31-year-old club captain, who has a history of back problems and has regularly dragged himself through the pain barrier to play for both club and country, will be able to take a rest during international weeks.

Chelsea's manager has begun, of course, to look at the options of how to do without a player who has been the club's talisman on so many occasions. The skipper was on the bench for Saturday's home game with Stoke to help him recover from the exertions of the midweek battle with Juventus.

But when it comes to the crunch, he is no different to Chelsea managers of previous seasons. He always wants JT in the team. Even Andre Villas-Boas, in his flawed and failed 'project' to move out the Stamford Bridge old guard, picked Terry for every single Premier League game of his brief time in charge.

Terry played 43 of Chelsea's 61 matches last season, 46 the year before that, and 52 in both the previous campaigns. Di Matteo will have been hoping to get the same sort of workload out of him this year too, and not having to lose him for England matches will help with that.

In the short term, Gary Cahill's emergence as a defender of similar commitment and bravery will help plug the gaps. When it gets to the big games towards the end of the season then Terry will be in better shape to have a big influence.

It is curious that Chelsea remain such big outsiders for the title race, despite a flying start that sees them top of the table and one of only three unbeaten sides after five games. You can get 5.49/2 for Di Matteo's team to be the Premier League winners.

The injection of attacking pace and flair from the likes of Eden Hazard and the Brazilian Oscar has given an extra dimension, and while Fernando Torres remains a man of moods he has still started the season with some goals and will get more. And if Romelu Lukaku goes on playing, learning, and scoring goals during his loan spell at West Brom it's a fair bet he'll be back at Stamford Bridge in January to add to the firepower.

Add in the influence of a club captain with a major point to prove in the second half of the season and there's a fairly strong case to think that England's loss could be Chelsea's gain.