Nobody should be surprised to see how John Terry has played this season, explained current Ghana coach and former Chelsea manager Avram Grant.

After all, when you have shown the courage to come through what he did at the 2008 Champions League final, there can be no doubts.

After Moscow I didn’t have a doubt he would come back stronger, because of what I’d seen from him in tough times.

I knew it was something he would take with him for the rest of his life but that he would use it, use that pain, to make himself even stronger.

It’s not easy when you miss a penalty like that and I’m not sure how many players could have recovered so quickly.

But John was even better afterwards.

When he missed that penalty I told him people had short memories and that he had to remember he was one of the main reasons we had gone from that bad situation at the start of the season to a Champions League final.

I was hugely impressed with him from the start of my spell at Chelsea.

It was not an easy time because I replaced a big manager in Jose Mourinho but John was the first who understood we needed to move forward.

He pulled the team together and spoke with them. I could see straight away how positive and committed he was to the team.

The first thing that stands out is that he is such a strong character. You can see that with the way he has played over the past two seasons after he had spent the year before on the bench.

At his age, with all he has put his body through, he might have done what other players have done and given up a little, looked for a way out. But that’s not John Terry — he is always so positive.

He has so many qualities as a player.

On the pitch he has a lot of knowledge about football. You hardly ever find him out of position, he’s always in the right place while of course it’s very difficult to beat him physically.

But then you add in his character.

You cannot reach the highest level on talent alone. You need far more and maybe, at the very start, John didn’t exactly have that talent.

But he made himself into one of the best two or three defenders in the history of English football.