John Terry has hit back at the critics who slammed his reappointment as England
captain by insisting he should never have lost the armband in the first
place.

Terry has regained the leadership of Fabio Capello’s team
just over a year after the England coach deprived him of the honour
following an alleged affair with the partner of team-mate Wayne Bridge
and reports he was exploiting the captaincy for financial gain.

Capello’s
decision has been criticised by some because it is felt Terry’s
distasteful activities off the pitch showed such a lack of respect for
the captaincy he shouldn’t be given a second chance.

Much to
Terry’s consternation he has become regarded as one of the poster boys
for everything that is wrong with English football.

He could have
gone some way to changing that perception with a contrite tone when he
met the English media at the team’s hotel ahead of Saturday’s Euro 2012
qualifier against Wales.

Instead Terry insisted that, although he
has made a conscious effort to avoid negative headlines of late, he
still felt he had been harshly treated by Capello last year.

“Change my ways? That’s a difficult word,” Terry said.

“When I spoke to Fabio, and we can’t go into too much details, but when he knew the facts, he knew.

“As I said to the manager at the time, I accepted their decision. It doesn’t mean to say I agreed with it and I never will.”

Those accusations of making money off the back of his privileged position were also given short shrift by the Chelsea defender.

“I’ve
never cashed in. I’m not the best looking guy anyway, so people aren’t
going to want me spread all over the place. But I’ve never tried to cash
in on the England captaincy,” he said.

Another black mark
against Terry was a perceived attempt to destabilise Capello by publicly
questioning him during the World Cup as revenge for taking away the
captaincy.

On that subject, Terry was ready to admit he had gone
too far, but he was adamant he was just trying to do the best for his
country.

“I just wouldn’t come out publicly and say what I said. It would stay in-house. That’s what I learned from that,” he said.

“Looking back, certain things I shouldn’t have said, but I can still hold my head up high.

“Certainly. I wasn’t trying to upset the apple cart, the squad, the manager. That’s not me.”