John Terry will provide Chelsea with evidence of his commitment to the club when he flies out with Carlo Ancelotti's first-team squad for their pre-season tour of America this morning. The England captain is not yet ready to hand in a transfer request despite Manchester City's repeated insistence that he wants to join them in what would be a record transfer fee paid by a British club, with any sum likely to be close to £40million.

Terry appeared yesterday in a photo shoot to publicise Chelsea's renewal of their shirt sponsorship deal with Samsung, details of which were revealed in The Times yesterday, and spoke to club officials at the training ground. The 28-year-old will report for duty this morning before flying out from Heathrow for the club's ten-day tour, which begins with a friendly against the Seattle Sounders on Saturday. Joe Cole is unlikely to make the trip, however, because Chelsea fear that an intensive flight schedule could damage his rehabilitation from a serious knee injury picked up last season.

Chelsea claim to be relaxed about City's public courting of their captain and will take heart from his willingness to travel, but Terry's continued presence at Stamford Bridge is not guaranteed. Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, declared yesterday that the matter was closed, but that will not be the case until the club and player have held formal talks over a new contract.

“I don't know what they [City] are offering, but I'm confident John is going to remain with us,” Kenyon said. “John is a talisman, he's the heart of Chelsea, he came through our academy, he's our captain and he's also become captain of England while he's been with us. We're very confident John will be remaining here as captain of Chelsea.

“We're not going to sell John so it's really irrelevant what another club will offer. He's too important to us.”

Michael Ballack spoke for all his team-mates yesterday by admitting that Terry's prospective exit would represent a huge loss, but the Germany captain is convinced that his captain will stay. “It would worry any club to lose a guy like him but at this stage nobody thinks that he will leave,” Ballack said. “Of course we speak with each other - I'm confident he will stay.

“Money is always a big part of this business but he's happy. I can just tell you what he's saying and my feeling, that he's happy - he's a Chelsea boy and that's why I think he will stay.”

Uefa reduced the bans of Didier Drogba and José Bosingwa by a game yesterday after a successful appeal by the club. Drogba had been suspended for four matches and Bosingwa for three after their reaction to the defeat by Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final last season.

Mark Hughes has hit back at criticism of the effect of City's spending policy on the transfer market as he prepares to take his spending beyond the £200million mark in 13 months at the club with the £25million signing of Emmanuel Adebayor from Arsenal.

Adebayor has asked for more time to consider the move rather than report for a medical yesterday as planned. The Togo striker is understood to have misgivings about leaving a Champions League club for City.

The word “hypocritical” was put to Hughes with regard to Sir Alex Ferguson, who has lavished huge sums of money on Dimitar Berbatov, Rio Ferdinand, Juan Sebastián Verón and many others in his time at Manchester United.

“It's a good word,” Hughes said. “We haven't had the benefit of Champions League money over a long period of time and we haven't had the success to generate the large amounts you need to build a squad that is capable of winning trophies. We are just trying to be successful and, to do that, we have to spend money.

“Possibly the transfer market is inflated from Manchester United's point of view. The worth of getting a player of Carlos Tévez's quality is possibly higher for us than it is for Manchester United because they are in a different position.

“We're just trying to do the best for our club.”