West Ham or City should sign Terry – Harry

Matt Stead

Harry Redknapp believes West Ham should sign John Terry in the summer, and Manchester City should have done so in January.

Terry is out of contract at Chelsea in the summer, and although the captain announced he would leave the club after 21 years at the end of the season, Chelsea insist that they could still offer the 35-year-old a new deal.

Redknapp believes that Manchester City should have taken a chance on signing Terry in the January transfer window, and that his signing would have helped them win the Premier League.

“If I had been at Man City, I’d have got on the phone on deadline day and tried to take him now,” Redknapp told BT Sport. “I’d have said, ‘If you ain’t giving him another contract, we’ll take him.’

“He could have won the league for Man City. They wouldn’t have got smashed up like they did by Leicester. He’d have marked Robert Huth better from set plays than whoever did on Saturday.”

Redknapp added that his former club West Ham could be an ideal fit in the summer. Terry spent four years in the club’s youth ranks from 1991.

“West Ham would be a good move for West Ham and John,” Redknapp said. “He was at West Ham as a schoolboy.

“It is difficult, I’d keep John personally. John has brought it to a head by coming out and saying what he’s said. It is difficult now.

“If they had done it in the summer – holidays, cricket, Euros – but now he has the crowd on his side from John’s point of view, he wants to stay but if he isn’t going to stay it’s: ‘Here I am, who wants me?’ America or China, whoever.”