John Terry Q&A

What does the Community Shield represent to you?

It’s a big game, a trophy to win before the season gets going and good preparation against the best side over the last few years in the Premier League. It’s a big trophy and we’re going into the game hoping to win it.

When you’re involved in lots of competitions and you win trophies you get rewarded with games like this and when you go into them, 100 per cent you want to win them – Manchester United will be feeling exactly the same way as us about it.

Does it make you feel proud to be involved in the Community Shield, bearing in mind the trophies you have to win to take part in it?

I don’t look at it as if we beat them, or they beat us, it’s going to decide the outcome of the Premier League, it isn’t like that.

At the same time, it’s a good test to see what their fitness levels are like and how sharp they are, which is the same with us as well. So you get a rough idea of what you’re up against, but it’s also important we keep winning because we’ve had some good results in pre-season, and they were against good sides as well, so we want to maintain that winning mentality coming into the league season by winning this game.

Does it act as a step up from the pre-season to the competitive campaign?

I’m sure other clubs are the same, but at Chelsea every single day in training, whether it be pre-season, the first day back, any day, the lads are at 100 per cent.

At times the manager has even told us to hold back a little bit and save our energy because our mentality is to give it everything, we hate to lose, whether it be in training or in a match – so you can imagine we don’t want that feeling of losing a game like this.

The full interview will be in the official Match Programme for the game, which can be ordered now by clicking here.