Oriol and Obi

[LDN Blue 7,903]

I know it may fallbon deaf ears but mikel was not originally a dm. Yeah he's been able to hold it for some time but he isn't a natural DM!! Nigeria keep cryin about how we use him, but managers just blow them aside. Soo all this blame on him should just die down a bit.

Indeed. He was outstanding when he used to play AM, it was the reason we & united went head-to-head in battle to sign him. I think it was Mourinho who decided he would be a better DM and all managers after have actively accepted this. It's a shame because an attacking Mikel is exactly what we need right now, but I fear he's lost almost all those abilities now.

[blue out west 27]

Romeu(Pros)

-quick with the ball

-stabilizes the midfield as well as the defense.

-Find's space better than most of our players.

-Physical nature to his football.

-Tiki Taka influenced

-Creative Spark when moving forward

-Accurate with his passing

-Rare he loses the ball

-Very young as well as high potential

CONS

-Inexperienced in competitive matches and the nature of the PL

-Lack of Speed

Mikel(Pros)

- Defensive Nature

- Breaks up opposing attack

- Reliable in defending and closing space

CONS-

Error Prone

Consistent simple mistakes

Slow with ball

Slow with Transition

Lack of Attacking presence

Lack of Creativity

Romeu is NOT quick on the ball. He plays it slightly quicker and more direct because he doesn't set up the move, he delegates that to somebody else. Which is the right thing to do, and what I'm sure he's instructed to do, because he doesn't possess the vision and passing ability that Mikel does.

Its just laughable that Romeu is being lauded as a creative spark and even moreso as less error prone than Mikel. That's just out of touch, really.

Neither of them are creative factors in the final third, and rightly so, because they are defensive midfielders. Romeu and Mikel don't play the same way, and so they aren't given the exact same type of role, but its pretty close. Romeu is the superior tackler for sure, and has a much better natural aggression in defense (though it does get him out of position sometimes). Mikel is a guy who could play a deep lying playmaker role but instead plays more defensively because we have players like mata, lamps etc who are much better in that job but are lacking defensively.

They're both extremely strong and physical players who get stuck in no problem, so it makes sense why they both play almost all of their games @ DM. Time will tell if Romeu can round out his game with some better passing and learn to harness his aggression, but if he does I think he'll be a real solid player for us. For now he's still growing.

I look back at Mikel's career though and he had to learn to calm down, be more disciplined and it really helped him clean up a lot of errors in his game so no reason that Romeu can't do that too. He seems like a level headed young guy.

Indeed. He was outstanding when he used to play AM, it was the reason we & united went head-to-head in battle to sign him. I think it was Mourinho who decided he would be a better DM and all managers after have actively accepted this. It's a shame because an attacking Mikel is exactly what we need right now, but I fear he's lost almost all those abilities now.

In my opinion Mikel is better with fast creative players around him, when he did so well as an AM with the Nigerian youngsters he would hit fast runners with brilliant through balls but he's not really a creative guy. Much more of a precise passer who can maintain possession if the move starts to break down. We've seen him get forward from time to time this season and play a bit of that game.

If Essien was more of a natural DM than a box to box or central midfielder I don't think we ever would've made Mikel a career DM. I think its fair to say, and I don't wanna be harsh, but Essien is a level above Mikel and so you gotta pick the squad more around him than the Nigerian.

and we haven't had anyone else any good at a DM role since Maka and Mikel is young