Terry meeting talks blocked

John Terry's attempts to highlight growing discontent within the England squad at a clear-the-air meeting on Sunday night appear to have been blocked by coach Fabio Capello. Although there has been no official statement on the discussion Terry was expecting to have in a pre-planned team gathering, widespread reports have emerged suggesting Capello ruled out the idea of an open discussion to air grievances.

It is believed senior figures within the management team and squad persuaded Terry the idea of discussing the team's feelings would not go down well with Capello. Terry revealed in Sunday's candid press conference that a group of senior England players - Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, David James, Jamie Carragher, Glen Johnson, Aaron Lennon and Peter Crouch - discussed the side's problems over a beer after the disappointing draw with Algeria.

Chelsea defender Terry admitted he planned to discuss the situation with Capello to put the ideas of the players across to the Italian.

"We are in a meeting with the manager, whether he starts it or finishes it, the players can say how they feel and if it upsets him then I'm on the verge of just saying: 'you know what? So what? I'm here to win it for England'," said Terry.

"If we can't be honest with each other there is no point being here. It has worked in the past at Chelsea. We have a responsibility to ourselves, the manager and everyone else to voice an opinion and hope he takes it on board."

Terry conceded he felt a sense of togetherness has been missing from the squad, who are bored at the lack of things to do at their Rustenburg base and he believes their impromptu discussion after the Algeria game was good for some players to air their grievances.

"Maybe the togetherness has been missing at times," said Terry."When things don't go well it is important the group stays together. Usually everyone goes straight back to their room and stays there until the following morning. But on Friday, for the first time since the manager took over, he let us have a beer.

"We had one each, nothing more than that, and seven or eight of us sat there talking about the game. It was good to get things off our chest and express how we felt."