John Terry has signed for Aston Villa, but can he ever really leave Chelsea?

It must be strange, being an Aston Villa fan. Your side is, essentially, a big club attempting to make itself as small as possible, and as such has descended from the Premier League to mid-table in the Championship. And now, your manager, owner, and club Twitter account are all trying to persuade you that John Terry has joined the club, when John Terry is — as everybody knows — a Chelsea player.

He was, is, and always will be a Chelsea player. He was a Chelsea player when he went on loan to Nottingham Forest; he was a Chelsea player every time he jogged out for England; and he will be a Chelsea player every time he pretends to pull on Villa’s claret and blue. It is literally impossible for him not to be a Chelsea player. Sometimes a player and a club become so intertwined that they one cannot exist without the other; the former becomes the avatar of the latter.

You may recall some controversy when Terry celebrated Chelsea’s 2012 Champions League final victory in full kit, despite having been suspended for the game. But in truth, Terry is always wearing a full Chelsea kit, even when he’s wearing a suit. Even when he’s wearing nothing at all. It’s always there, just beneath his skin, and frankly he looks weirder when he pretends to wear other clothes.

In a sense, all sporting identities are coincidental. Though he’d established himself as a first-team regular before Roman Abramovich looked out of a helicopter and said “I’ll have that one,” it’s been Terry’s face smiling under every single trophy that has followed since. He had the good fortune to be there, to be young, and to be extremely good at defending at precisely the right moment, and so he has become the emblematic figure of Chelsea’s superclub phase.

Perhaps, had Chelsea never received that transformative injection of cash, Terry would have taken his chest-beating defending elsewhere, kissed some other badge, and given some other club the blessing of his defending and the burden of his frequent buffoonery. But it all happened at Chelsea, and so he has been Chelsea, and Chelsea has, in significant part, been him.

At least, until recently. Villa are presumably pretending to sign him on the basis of his reputation, because his actual football has been limited of late. In 2014/15 he played 49 games for the club, in 2015/16 that dropped to 33, and then last season under Antonio Conte he featured in just 14. He wasn’t particularly impressive when he did make it onto the pitch. There was no obvious place for him in Conte’s back three, and perhaps his most memorable contribution was a clumsy red card against League One Peterborough in the FA Cup.

It will therefore be fascinating to see how the lying mainstream media pretends that he gets on in the Championship, which guarantees two things: a cluttered schedule and a clutch of awkward opponents. Villa open their season with six games in three weeks, including games against Hull City, Reading, and Norwich City, all of whom will have their own promotion ambitions. Terry “arrives” with around 800 professional games in his 36-year-old knees, and based on his performances over the last season or so, is feeling them all.

Presumably, as part of this charade, Steve Bruce will seek to manage Terry’s workload, and look to him to inspire on the training pitch and in the dressing room as much as on the pitch. (By Skype, perhaps?) But so much of Terry’s career has been spent ostentatiously leading by example: flying into challenges, squaring up to opponents, barking in the face of referees. Can he lead legendarily, or even adequately, if he isn’t playing every week? Or if he’s being embarrassed by Championship forwards? It was odd to seem him marooned on the bench last season. It was even odder to think that there wasn’t really a need for him.

In a sense, this is the point. Though Terry was keen to stress that he’s “signed” to play, he has also acknowledged that he sees this as a chance to observe and learn from Bruce. As such, this isn’t just a swansong; this is step one in Terry’s transformation from player to manager, from on-field leader to off-field inspiration. That path will, if all goes well, curve back towards Stamford Bridge. Where he’ll find himself waiting, because he never left.

It seems Terry is aware of his extreme Chelsea-ness. Speaking after Stanley Kubrick finished shooting the fake shirt presentation, he claimed that he was dropping down to the Championship in order to avoid having to meet his supposedly-former-but-really-still-current club. Presumably he is aware of the strain that such cognitive dissonance might put on the minds of England’s football followers.

Let’s just hope the cup draws keep them apart. The world’s complicated enough already. If we all have to start pretending that Terry is actively playing against Chelsea, the consequences might be so apocalyptic as to overshadow the inevitable muted celebration.