CHOULO19

You're really clutching at straws here. NO ONE, not even the people who bash Mikel, has ever said that Mikel is easily dispossessed! It's simply the opposite of reality! You've changed the subject about half a dozen times and completely ignored the parts that prove your previous points false. I honestly don't believe that you have a specific point here except that you don't like Mikel and are trying to find anything to criticize him by. But fine, continue believing whatever you insist on believing in. I give up.

Right, joined third with Atletico, actually. Don't know why I misread their GD.

He's constantly in the top 20 in the league even though most teams in those 3 season specifically targeted our central midfielders because we had trouble transition the ball to the forwards and he was always used as an outlet for players under pressure. His ball retention is like no other player in the league, how in the world can you have watched Mikel all those years and try to claim other wise?! But, by all means, carry on believing that Mikel displaces many passes and gets dispossessed too much!

OFF WITH JOSE'S HEAD! On a serious note, we've scored the most goals in CL group stages and conceded the 4th least!

Wait, what does the rest of post matter? It is completely irrelevant and doesn't effect one bit that the part I quoted is completely false. You want me to address the other point as well? Fine: Using his strength to keep the ball under pressure has always been his best attribute.

Come on, guys. It's "academy day", fgs! You don't really expect an academy player to actually work on this sacred holiday?!

If he makes a mistake leading to the equalizer, or even just comes on and we end up losing or drawing, his confidence would shattered. Put yourself in his shoes, is that how you'd like to remember your debut? Anyway, that's irrelevant now, he should come on now.

You said: That is VERY obviously false and can't be further from the truth. Even if he only passes sideways, which isn't true, he clearly doesn't give the ball away too much. I could point out that in the 2012/13 season for example, he played a higher percentage of forward passes than Lampard and Ramires and averaged longer passing distances than both (I remember because I myself crunched the numbers at the time), but you'll most likely change your "main argument" to something else, so let's just drop it.

Even for RLC himself, it's not good to put him on for his debut in a close game at his age. No need to put such pressure on him.

Not a chance till we get the third, imo. Or until the last 15-20 mins.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/8130025/John-Obi-Mikel-reborn-as-Chelseas-undisputed-pass-master.html A minute ago you said your main criticism is that he gives the ball away too easily from bad passes, now it's that he only has a good passing accuracy because he only passes backwards and sideways? This is exactly what I meant when I said that people have an unhealthy obsession with pinning imaginary faults on Mikel. But you're entitled to your opinion. I've long given up on trying to change people's opinions when they are scapegoating someone. I just state and clarify my opinion and everyone has the right to believe what they want.

Your opinion and I completely disagree, but like I said above, there is no point to over analyze and discuss because he is just a squad player and Jose knows that Mikel gives us "great stability in that position" to quote his exact words.

That's just beyond incredible. For several season, Mikel was the player who played the most passes in the league at the highest accuracy for non-defenders! And arguably his best attribute is his ball retention: meaning his ability to keep the ball under immense pressure. Which Mikel are you talking about?! Mikel has his obvious limitations: He is slow and lacks dynamism which makes him unfit to be our starting DM for the kind of pressing we usually do. But as far squad players go, it's very hard to find a better and more experienced player to come off the bench.

Doesn't look a day over 50 today!

Noooooo. Schurrle on the left takes 20 shots from 40 yards out each half!

The way that Mikel plays is that he dives in?! The main criticism for Mikel in the past is that he does NOT tackle enough but instead likes to contain players and block passing lane. Please make up your mind, which is it? On any account, all of our midfield 3, including Matic, has made that very same mistake of being too agressive in pressing, leading to a lot of conceded chances and several goals especially at the start of the season, so you can't exactly say that Matic would not have made that mistake. EDIT: Funnily enough, at this very moment Matic was drawn to the ball too easily and got beaten by the Sporting player leading to a (tame) header on our goal. In that very goal there were much bigger mistakes than Mikel's. Anyway, this does not even deserve this over discussion because Mikel is just a squad player.

They did. They even won 6-0

The game in Spain was completely different than the one yesterday, you can't talk about them as the same thing. In Spain, they often pressed high and sometimes retreated to deep, but the battle was mainly in midfield and their were fighting Juve for dominance and in the end emerged on top when in the final 20 minutes the physical conditions of the Atleti players proved better than Juve's. Yesterday was a whole different story and they rarely looked to press high. In fact, in the last 10 mins when Juve gave up the hope of scoring the two goals they needed, they just allowed us to pass the ball in midfield between our players. Nonetheless we should have scored from the positions we got into but Juve notoriously lack clinical finishing. If Pirlo and Leichsteiner were having good games, Juve would have most likely won. No one can take away what Simone has achieved with Atleti, but his attitude, especially in the CL final last year, make me have second thoughts about ever wanting him here.

Mikel played just fine. In fact much better than just fine. He did not slow the game down and most of the time even played one or two touch passes. The defense made a few mistakes, we got unlucky, we didn't finish the chances we created, they got very lucky in attack, we got beat. It happens in football. The obsession of trying to pin imaginary mistakes on Mikel is unhealthy...

One this is wasting time or holding people on set pieces and another completely different thing to dive and play-act and try to injure people. Don't care who does the latter I will call him disgraceful (as I have done on this very board to Iva and Rami when they have done similar things in the past). And why would I be upset as a Juve fan? They practically gifted us qualification yesterday by not attacking and putting 10 men around there box. Had they attacked, we would probably have been in trouble. They are well capable of winning in Turin.

Elbowing people and feigning injuries to get opposition players booked is not "part of the game", or at least it should not be.

Anything but Juve or Barca and I'd be pretty confident.

Boga's second:

To be fair, he's the only one who's actually went on to make a decent career for himself.

Lovely FK: https://twitter.com/unCFCTV/status/542677362383802368 And Solanke's goal also came from a setpiece: https://twitter.com/unCFCTV/status/542677391760703489 EDIT: Just scored a third, Boga's second.