"He Won It BY A MILE!" John Terry REVEALS Chelsea's Bleep Test Winner And PRAISES Cole Palmer!

Talksport Breakfast, Ali and Gabby with you this morning, also five-time Premier League winner John Terry. Just to let you know guys, I'm getting a call with a hypocrite. I've had Big Boydie on, Big Chris Boydie sent me a message. More days off for the lads, he says, what about you cancelling the Christmas party? Did you? I did. That's poor, eh? Can't do that. You deserved it, Boydie, man. By the way, just to let you know, every day was a Christmas party for Boydie, by the way. Right, JT, let's talk Chelsea. Sitting pretty in the top four at this moment in time. Shining light over the last couple of seasons has been Cole Palmer. I've got to say, before we get your opinions on him, former Chelsea player Jason Cundey and ex-Spurs player Jamie O'Hara lauding praise on the Chelsea forward. Isn't it this? What a boy. £40 million we paid for him. It's a joke. He is just a remarkable footballer. Yeah. A remarkable footballer. Every time he gets it, he just looks to hurt you. Mate, he does. He never plays an easy pass. He selects the pass that can hurt you most, but he's got the ability, nine times out of ten, to find it. Yeah. The amount of times you put Jackson in, honestly, this kid is, he is a superstar in the waiting. If not already. He's already a superstar. I know, but the levels he can get to. I love his mentality. The levels. The first question I've got written here, JT, it's a brilliant question, actually. And it's talking about Cole Palmer. And the question is, does he remind you of a Chelsea player of old? And I get that question, because I kind of grew up watching Chelsea in the 70s. You know, all that Kings Road stuff and some of the boys, Osgood and all these guys. Is he a little bit of a throwback? A little bit. It seems to be too easy for him at times, Ali. For me, like, he strolls through games a little bit, but he's so far ahead of everyone else in terms of the way he sees the game. I mean, Jamie touched on it there, saying about he always plays that forward pass. He's never looking for the simple one. I think him and Jackson have a really good relationship as well. Nico likes to play on people's shoulders and stuff, which a lot of strikers don't do nowadays as well. But he's just been, honestly, phenomenal. When you go to these games at the Bridge as well, you can't help but just watch and follow him. Like, the ball's at the other end of the pitch and he's just watching his movement. He's always kind of on the half turn, getting in little pockets. Like, Lamps and Zola used to find themselves in areas that you didn't even know existed. He's the same as well, but he turns and wants to drive at people and play forward, which I think is the key to it. I've looked at him a few times and you're spot on. You do, even when the play's on the other end of the pitch. You look at him and he always has a look before he receives it. I mean, I look at Foden. I think Foden receives it as well as anybody, kind of on the half turn. Palmer comes into that category as well. But his awareness, as you say, of space and people around him is just a different level. When he runs, he doesn't look like he's sprinting. He's gliding past players, isn't he? Yeah, he's quite quick, you know. He's quite quick. And also, I was at Chelsea the other day. They was doing a bleep test. He won it by a mile. And he was cruising. Like, people were dropping out and he was there right till the end. So, in terms of fitness levels and the power, because he looks quite skinny, but very strong. Takes the ball on the half turn really quick as well. Like, impossible to play against. Yeah, actually, bleep test making me feel dizzy. Oh man, I just got a cold shiver down my spine. They mention the old bleep test. Unlike Cole Palmer, I was never up the front of the bleep test. What about, are there any in the academy, which I know you keep your eyes on, Jon, all the time. Any kind of young Cole Palmer's coming through? Any John Terry's coming through? Any Lampard's coming through? Any Drogba's coming through? There's a few. We've had a really good academy over the last, kind of, 15, 20 years, to be honest. And there's some I don't want to single anyone out and, kind of, highlight anyone. Yeah, get that. And allow anyone to come and approach our best players. But we've got a really, really good academy. Fifteens, we've got three or four really good boys that are showing really good signs already. So, in terms of opportunities with the first team, they're training with the first team more than ever. Which is great for the boys as well, to see what it looks like over there. So, they're getting a taste of it as well. So, when they are called upon, I think we've seen already a lot of the boys come in and play and make their debut this year and last year as well. So, great in terms of where we're at as an academy. And hopefully, listen, it all depends on the first team because you want to keep attracting the best players as well to Chelsea. We need to be at the top. We need to be winning trophies to be able to get the best players in the club. Do you know sometimes, JT, you hear about a player? I remember at Villa and there was this player, Jack Reelish, in the academy. Wow, wow, wow. Obviously, you're not going to name the player, but he's the one that you look at and you're like, okay, ten years time, I know for a fact he's going to be playing Premier League football. Yeah, Gavs, we've got three or four. It's hell, can't you? Even at the fifteens, there's three or four really, really good boys. And also, there's three or four good boys playing up in the eighteens already. Like 14 and 15, they're very early 15-year-olds. That's a different level. Yeah, it's a different level. And also, they're standing out at this level as well. So, they're coming in and what I love about a couple of them, they've got a little bit of personality. So, we had one recently, we played against Arsenal. Max Dalman was playing, the Arsenal boy. Have you seen him play? No, I've not seen him. He's a top, top player, yeah. And he was taking the ball on the half-turn, drifting away from players, looking back. And a couple of our boys just went and put it on him a little bit. And it was really good to see as well. I actually saw, there was a YouTube video. Against Man United in the FA Youth Cup, yeah. Well, he looked special. Yeah, he's a very, very good player. But that was what it was actually like when, under Paul Lambert, when Jack came and trained with us the first time. Normally, the younger lads would come with shin pads on and like socks pulled up. Do you know what I mean? Like old school. He'd come up with these socks down below his calves, he was drifting past players. And we were like, who the hell does he think he is? So, I mean, JT, and then you see how good he was. And he just had the attitude of like, yeah, no problem. I don't care, I'm training with the first-team players. I'm not going to do what I'm doing. It's great to have that. Exactly. Just fearless, some of the kids come through. So much going on here, John. So, you know, excuse me. I'm going to reminisce a little. We had your former teammate, John Obie-McCale, in the studio. And Whiting Jordan a few months ago. And he spoke on Rafa Benitez's time as Chelsea boss. There was something about Rafa and the fans that the fans didn't take to him. And same as well with the players. We didn't really accept him as one of us. And then he had the thing with JT. You know, where JT got dropped. JT wasn't playing as much as he wanted. Because, obviously, JT was always playing. And Rafa comes and he was like, okay, you're not going to play every game. But, obviously, JT wanted an explanation. Why am I not playing? And Rafa didn't give him that. So, did your players get together and think, well, we need to help JT out here? Yeah, JT got together by himself and decided, you know, your time is gone. So, you made no bones about it, John. The players had the power. You know, we had the power. We had the power. I think JT, Frank, Didier. Didier was very opinionated. Didier had a lot of voice in the dressing room. Peter Cech. These were the guys who ran the dressing room. And when they feel like, okay, this manager is not giving the players what we want. And we're not playing as much as we want. We're not enjoying ourselves the way we want to enjoy ourselves. He's gone. You know, we'll come together. We'll, you know, try to figure out a way. We'll get someone in that we want. And was Abramovich aware that you guys were virtually running it? Yeah. Yeah, he knew that. It's brilliant. I've never met John. But I tell you what, you can get the impression, if you've got a dressing room full of guys like that, you're doing all right. Is that fair? He was brilliant. And to have him in front of me playing was brilliant. He covered so much ground. Like, I still play in ex-Legends games now and stuff. And he can still play. He could still play in the Prem OB today. It's amazing. Really, really top player. Those holding midfielders like McAlealy gets to reckon this. There's certain players in that role don't get the credit they deserve. And OB was one of them. Brilliant.