What does Mikel actually add to the team ? Can't provide cover on defense, is a poor tackler, poor at winning the ball back, best at losing the ball, poor at moving the ball forward, can't score goals. I remember a couple of years ago there were a crowd of crazies on here who thought Mikel was the shit. I used to tell everyone I know though that his only skill is to pass the ball back to the guy he gets it from. Mikel is the master of the backwards pass. Look at his passing and see what proportion are sideways or backwards passes and what proportion move the ball forward. Whenever he tries anything on offense he looks woefully out of place. He lost the ball for the third City goal doing God knows what. Out of the top 5 teams we have by far the worst central midfield and it is largely due to him. He has been poor for some while now and I don't understand why this club takes so long to clear deadwood ? Surely, we the fans are not the only ones to see how poor he is ? Yet year after year we have to deal with this nonsense, like we had to do with Kalou, who only stayed so long because he was actually a relation of Roman. On the one hand you pay 50m for Torres, and big money for unknown youngsters who you'll never play in the first team, and on the other you refuse to replace a position we've been woeful in for a long while. Infuriating, to say the least. I'm sorry if I appear hateful or anything. We are making half decent midfields look like Barcelona with him out there. If he was simply a squad player and was starting because we were short due to injuries, I'd understand this. But he is rewarded year after year for doing nothing at all. All the ruckus after stealing him from United and he has not improved at all in his time here. Apart from attacking midfield, in what positions are we actually better than our rivals ? Not in defense, not in central midfield, not in strikers. We finished 6th and then 3rd in the league only two points ahead of Arsenal. I really don't see us being much better next season, unless we bring in at least 3 quality players.