• Terry insists that players and manager can ‘turn this season around’ • ‘He’s under pressure because of the way we’re performing,’ says Terry

John Terry has sought to deflect criticism from José Mourinho by suggesting the club’s players are far more culpable for the team’s recent toils and insisting the ailing champions will “turn this season around”.

Chelsea play Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League on Wednesday having won only once in eight matches in all competitions. Their title defence has spluttered miserably with six defeats in 11 matches having left them languishing 15th while Mourinho, publicly backed by the board, has been the subject of disciplinary action from the Football Association.

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He will be banned from Stoke’s Britannia stadium on Saturday, subject to an appeal, as a result of being sent to the stands during the recent loss to West Ham and is still waiting to discover if a separate £50,000 fine and suspended one-match stadium ban, for comments made after the defeat against Southampton, will stand.

There have been rumours of player revolts behind the scenes against his stewardship and even one suggestion, from a third party but broadcast as fact on radio, that an unnamed player would rather “lose than win” for the Portuguese.

Terry, 34, whose contract at Stamford Bridge expires in the summer, described those allegations as “ridiculous”. Asked how he and the players would feel if the team’s dismal form ultimately cost the beleaguered manager his job, the captain said: “It’s not going to come to that. The club have shown faith in the best manager with the best history at this club.

“Of all the managers I’ve worked with, and in all aspects, he’s by far and a long, long way the best. We are going to turn it around. No ifs, no buts. I’m sure.

“I’m adamant we’ll turn this around and he’ll be in charge for the rest of the season and long after I’ve finished playing for this club. He is the man to take Chelsea forward to where we want to be.”

Responsibility for the team’s worst start to a Premier League campaign, argued Terry, lay with the players rather than the coaching staff. “He’s under pressure because of the way we’re performing,” he said. “He’s very demanding and is devastated after poor results, taking it all on his shoulders, but he can do all the work he wants on the training field and in team meetings.

“Once we step over that white line it’s on us. We know we need to be better, collectively, for this club and for him. He will take a lot of the responsibility on his own shoulders, and that’s unfair. It’s on all of us, collectively, and not just on him.

“The players will stand up and say – and I will, on a personal level – that we’ve not been good enough.

“I need to get back up to the level I showed last season. If we can all do that we’ll be in a better position because we’ve not played well enough.

“The table doesn’t lie, we know where we are, and we certainly don’t want to be in this position in a couple of weeks’ time. The pressure is there and it’s difficult. But I can assure you the players are 100% behind the manager. We are together.

“We’ve been a bit unlucky not to get one or two results form the last few games, and we will turn things around. We will climb up that league table, I’m sure of that.”

Terry baulked at the suggestion players within the squad might be happier if the team lost to place the manager’s position under greater scrutiny. “In my whole football career I’ve never heard a player come out with those words,” he said.

“Whether it’s been going badly or really badly. It’s ridiculous I have to sit here and even talk about it. It hurts because people are fighting. I’ve seen players’ faces with the disappointment after results, the feeling we’ve let the club, the manager and the fans down. Any player [who said that] wouldn’t be let out of the dressing room, let’s be honest. It wouldn’t go down too well.”

Mourinho was just as dismissive of those allegations. “It’s a very sad accusation because you are accusing the players, or more than one player – I don’t know which – of dishonesty,” he said. “They are giving their best in every minute of every training session.

“They are giving solidarity between all of us. [I have] a fantastic personal relationship with them and a very good professional relationship. They train always to the limits of their effort, and always with the strong desire to win the next match. That is what we are going to try and do.”

The manager, who expects to see out the four-year contract he signed in August, lost Radamel Falcao to a “muscular injury” in training on Tuesday. The Colombian,who has yet to appear in European competition over his loan spell and is therefore not cup-tied, will be ruled out until after the international window. Diego Costa is expected to feature against Dynamo despite still suffering discomfort in his ribs, a legacy of the League Cup loss at Stoke, while Branislav Ivanovic has recovered from a hamstring injury.

Eden Hazard, who threw his own support behind the manager in an in-house television interview broadcast on Tuesday night, is also likely to feature on the left having spoken at length to his manager about his own dip in form ahead of Saturday’s latest loss to Liverpool.

“We’ve heard all this about José and Eden [falling out] and, for me, we’re talking about the best manager I’ve seen in a long time at this club, and one of the best players I’ve seen at this club,” said Terry. “There’s been talk of them leaving the club and going elsewhere but, for me, they have to be in the Premier League.

“We are where we are, as a group. I’ve come in for criticism from certain players and individuals, people who I’ve looked up to and played alongside. I’ll take it on the chin, 100%. You’re talking the likes of Rio [Ferdinand], Carra [Jamie Carragher], [Gary] Neville. The very best I’ve come across in the game. I’ll sit there and listen and take it on the chin. I try not to look at it in a negative way.

“When certain other people speak, maybe not. Maybe I don’t listen. When players have not had a ‘career’, or have played at a really bad level throughout their career and come for people who have achieved what I’ve achieved in the game ... Robbie Savage being one. He’s dug me out a couple of times. As a footballer, as an individual, I’ll take it from the very best, the Rios, Carraghers and Nevilles. All day long. Other people? No.”