Andre Villas-Boas hits back at John Terry plane complaint: 'I see it different'

Former Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas has hit back at John Terry over the defender’s famous ‘plane row’ story, insisting he would probably do the same thing again.

Villas-Boas took over at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2012 but did not ingratiate himself to club captain Terry ahead of a trip to Hong Kong in pre-season.

Two years ago, Terry claimed Villas-Boas angered him and other senior players by choosing a number of the club’s young players to sit in first class.

At odds: Andre Villas-Boas and John Terry Getty “We've got Josh McEachran, Nathaniel Chalobah, a couple of other young players all in first class,” the Chelsea legend told Simon Jordan’s Up Front podcast. “And this was part of AVB going ‘no player is bigger than me, everyone's the same’.

“It turns out Lamps (Frank Lampard) is flying out in first class and I'm flying back in first class. So, if you fly out in first, you come back in economy, but basically it wasn't good enough.”

However, Villas-Boas has now responded to those claims – and highlighted some of the details of Terry’s story aren’t true.

Speaking on Jon Obi Mikel’s Obi One podcast, he said: “First of all, we are speaking first class or business class - not economy.

Andre Villas-Boas now works as president of Porto Getty “We only had a few (seats) free in first class, we couldn't fit all the first-team players.

“The principle was that, instead of creating a problem, let's put the academy boys here and send the rest of them to business class.”

He added: “I don't remember John coming to me saying it might have been an issue, I don't remember them changing. That was the principle, instead of putting the top guns... we had enough for the captains which was a good excuse, we tested all of the different criteria, appearances, years for the club - the principle was the big guns got together.

Villas-Boas says the incident had “zero influence” on the pre-season trip “because we were excellent and started the season well”.

However, there were arguably long-term effects with Chelsea slipping outside the Premier League ’s top four by March, which was when Villas-Boas was sacked.

His assistant, Roberto Di Matteo, was handed the reins and within three months had guided the Blues to Champions League glory.

Villas-Boas added during the interview that he was “disappointed” Di Matteo had not informed him that he would be taking the job following his dismissal.