During his 19-year playing career at Stamford Bridge, Terry established himself as one the Premier League's best-ever centre-backs.

Capped 78 times for his country, the Englishman skippered Chelsea to all five of their league titles and kept 214 clean sheets in 492 appearances - the most of any defender.

Having hung up the boots, Terry spent time away from the Blues, working at both Aston Villa and Leicester City under Dean Smith but returned to the West London club in 2021 to help bring through the next generation of talents at the club's academy.

In that time, several young players have made the successful jump into the first team but few have left Terry more impressed than centre-back Gilchrist.

'Literally from the first training session in which I saw him, he reminded me of myself,' Terry said, told the Daily Mail when asked about the 20-year-old. 'He was keen to learn, asking me questions about defending and constantly picking my brains over what I would do in different situations.

'And he's 100 per cent in everything he does. Whether that's the warm-up to get him going, he's all-in. You don't ever want to take that away. Even on his recovery days, he's 100 miles per hour.

'If you're at Chelsea, you've got great ability in the first place to be there. But it's really important for younger players to have that mentality and Alfie had that in abundance even from an early age.'

Gilchrist, a boyhood fan of the club growing up, made his debut under Mauricio Pochettino last season and celebrated wildly after scoring his debut first-team goal in a 6-0 win over Everton in April.

And the former Blues captain is confident that Gilchrist can fulfil his ambitions.

'Hopefully, he comes back to Chelsea and breaks through into our team.

'When you see the journeys of these young players, and you play a small part in helping them, it's really rewarding for me, being Chelsea through and through.

'I love it. Alfie and all of his family are Chelsea, too, so I know deep down he wants to come back and break through.'

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