John Terry has hit back at the critics who slammed his reappointment as England captain by insisting he should never have been stripped of the armband in the first place.

Terry has regained the leadership of Fabio Capello's team just over a year after the England coach deprived him of the honor following an alleged affair with the partner of teammate Wayne Bridge and reports he was exploiting the captaincy for financial gain.

Capello's decision has been criticized in some quarters because it is felt Terry's distasteful activities off the pitch showed such a lack of respect for the captaincy that he should not have been given a second chance.

Much to Terry's consternation he has become regarded as one of the poster boys for everything that is wrong with English soccer and he could have gone some way to changing that perception with a contrite tone when he met the English media at the team's hotel ahead of Saturday's Euro 2012 qualifier against Wales.

Instead Terry insisted that, although he has made a concious effort to avoid negative headlines of late, he still felt he had been harshly treated by Capello last year.

"Change my ways? That's a difficult word," Terry said. "When I spoke to Fabio, and we can't go into too much details, but when he knew the facts, he knew.

"As I said to the manager at the time, I accepted the decision. It doesn't mean to say I agreed with it, and I never will. That's me being very proud and having been honest."