John Terry tears into Chelsea stars and claims one thing will cost them in title race

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Chelsea icon John Terry has delivered a scathing verdict on his former side's performance against Leeds United as they fell to a 3-1 defeat at Elland Road. The ex-defender tore into Chelsea's inconsistency and claimed it will cost them the title after the defeat saw them lose ground on Arsenal and Manchester City .

The Blues had entered the clash in impressive form, having recently seen off Barcelona in the Champions League and secured a creditable 1-1 stalemate with leaders Arsenal in the Premier League .

Yet, Enzo Maresca's side crumbled in dismal fashion at Elland Road on Wednesday evening, succumbing to goals from Jaka Bijol, Ao Tanaka and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Pedro Neto's second-half strike briefly raised Chelsea's hopes, but it wasn't sufficient as the Blues endured an ill-timed setback. Chelsea, who had been labelled title contenders in recent weeks, now find themselves in fourth, nine points behind leaders Arsenal after Wednesday night's slip up.

Terry, who won 15 major honours during his Chelsea career and made more than 700 appearances for the club, took no prisoners with his reaction as he listed several reasons why he was so unimpressed by the Elland Road defeat, reports football.london .

“What a poor performance that was," Terry said in a video posted on TikTok. “Everything I said about Leeds away, they were going to be aggressive, fans were going to be up for it, it's a hostile place to go.

"You either go there and match them, or you take the sting out of it completely, and by the looks of it, we certainly didn’t do that in the first half.

“We cannot follow up two unbelievable performances - one against Barcelona and [one] against Arsenal - with that performance tonight, because it’s certainly not going to make you title contenders at the end of it.

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“Unfortunately, that’s what’s going to cost us at the end of it, we are inexperienced and if you can’t go Leeds away and know what to expect.

“You need to go there and show the fight, match Leeds in every single way and then earn your right to play. After 15, 20 minutes, then you play your football once you’ve earned that right."

Terry even suggested that Maresca may now opt against rotating after his five changes to the starting XI at Leeds backfired.

He added: “Goal from a set piece, individual mistakes defensively, clearly not good enough.

"Maybe that’s an opportunity for the manager to look at the squad and go, ‘Okay rotations not for me moving forward, I know my best starting 13-14 players and I’ll stick with that and the players are just going to have to deal with it'.”