When Frank Lampard pledged last week to win the Carling Cup for John Terry – who had an ankle injury at the time – he could not have imagined that his words would prove so prophetic.

As Chelsea’s vice-captain lifted the trophy for the second time in three years, Terry was returning to the Millennium Stadium from hospital after swallowing his tongue during a second-half collision with Abou Diaby. Seeing their captain smiling soon after the team returned to the dressing-room was more welcome than the silverware, as Didier Drogba, the match-winning goalscorer, confirmed.

“I think more about JT than the cup,” the Ivory Coast striker said. “We won and we’re happy because we’ve got the cup, but we are also scared because we didn’t know what to expect when we saw JT on the floor. It’s been a strange day.”

Terry had made a remarkable recovery from the ankle ligament damage suffered against FC Porto last week to start the match, although the resilience of his battered and bruised body yesterday was far more evident.

The England captain was knocked out after taking the full force of Diaby’s boot on his chin as he went to head a ball towards the Arsenal goal in the 57th minute and was taken to hospital. The presence of a neck brace and oxygen mask on the stretcher – not to mention the fact that his pallor was paler than usual – confirmed the potential seriousness of the injury, although his colour had returned by the time he was back at the stadium.

Out of respect for Terry’s family, José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, refused to speculate over when he will be back in action, although after suffering concussion he should be out for seven days at least.

“The first thing is he’s OK,” Mourinho said. “His wife is here and his little babies are here. The man is more important than the player. I spoke with his agent just now on the phone and he knows everything. He remembers the game and the result.

“He lost his consciousness and it was a major problem, but he had recovered by the time he was on the stretcher.

“We found out he was OK and after that started to think about football, to make changes on the bench. I gave him some words and the way he reacted I knew he was OK. I was with the fourth official, who was talking to Howard Webb [the referee], who said he was OK.”

Such potentially serious injuries have been a feature of Chelsea’s season, which goes some way to explaining Mourinho’s stoicism. The Portuguese said that his mind had drifted back to the horrific evening in Reading in October, when Petr Cech suffered a fractured skull and Carlo Cudicini was concussed.

“This season everything has happened to us and we’re used to it,” the manager said. “Sometimes in football dramatic things happen. This season we’ve had lots of them, with Petr and Carlo, and negative things keep happening to us.”

Cech was so distressed that he described Terry’s loss of consciousness as his worst moment in football.

“I think it’s one of the worst moments I have experienced on the pitch because I can’t remember my injury,” the Czech Republic goalkeeper said. “For the first three or four minutes after the injury I had other emotions. I hope he will be all right. I hope it’s the last injury he has.”

Whether Terry should have been on the pitch in the first place is a moot point because his ankle problem appeared to reduce him to the position of a mere passenger, with Ricardo Carvalho sparing his blushes on several occasions.

However, Mourinho insisted that Terry, who will miss at least the Premiership match away to Portsmouth on Saturday, was 100 per cent fit.