Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City struggled at Chelsea under Jose Mourinho.
Terry, now the assistant manager of Aston Villa, was at Chelsea from 1998 until 2017.
Salah is flourishing at Liverpool and is one of the best attacking players in the world, but the 27-year-old struggled to play regularly for Chelsea when he played under Mourinho – now the Tottenham Hotspur manager – at Stamford Bridge.
De Bruyne has been a key figure at City and is one of the best midfielders on the planet.
However, just like Salah – who joined Liverpool from AS Roma in the summer of 2017 for a transfer fee reported by The Guardian to be worth £36.9 million – the Belgium international did not make a huge impact during his time at Chelsea, and after spending time in Germany, he was snapped up by City in 2015.
Terry has suggested that Salah and De Bruyne could not get into the Chelsea team at the time due to the form and performance levels of Damien Duff and Arjen Robben – two players who actually left the Blues before they joined.
Terry said on Dubai Eye radio, as transcribed by The Mirror: “In my generation now I see people like Salah and Kevin De Bruyne come through and not being able to match his standards at the time.
“Now they were very talented but very young individuals as well. But Mourinho didn’t have time to put them in the team or take out a Duff or Robben because we was winning every single week and his job is on the line.
“So, like I said before if you come in and you are 10 or 20 per cent below the standard of Duff and Robben who were scoring 20 goals a season each. You are not gonna make that team, no chance.
“Fair play to them they’ve gone away elsewhere and proved they’re good enough but at that present time they wasn’t good enough for Chelsea.”
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