🇳🇬 Mikel John Obi

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Passing directions this season

Tackling/duels this season

Previous seasons I'd imagine his passing was much more backwards than forwards and that he would have lower tackling/duel stats. Pity I can't get his stats from last season on this site to compare them...

Anyway hes becoming a big big player for us. We'll see how we cope without him in January.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

I dont get why so much hate for this fella. He seems to play better and better. The problem I guess is in Ramires who is technicaly very weak. Would love to see someone like Xabi Alonso next to Mikel. That would be just brilliant. Xabi is such a complete midfielder realy...

Anyway if we would be scoring goals when we create chances, we would probably have 99% of wins so far. Then people would never hate Mikel.

[zolayes 14,489]

I am worried that when ACON starts we will find out just how important he is to us.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

I am worried that when ACON starts we will find out just how important he is to us.

Exactly and with talk of Lamps moving off to China and people thinking Oriol isn't ready yet we'll soon find out how good he really is. We might end up using the loan market to get another midfielder in for a few months just to aid the loss of Mikel in that January period.

[Kojo 4,676]

Ramires has one thing Dembele can dream of: the quality of his last services. To be fair Dembele is very overrated, he's almost a ball wanker... Good baller, good short passer but when it happens to be creative and make the difference in the last tier he's a dreadful player with poor choices even a 5 year old could guess.

But because he makes 5 passes per minute we aren't especially keen to notice that the build up passes aren't that succesful beside the loads of possession passes (I don't have a better translation for "redoublement", that's making the same pass to fix opponents and not to go forward or build something)

Ramires is more creative most people think, the passing thing is very overrated with him. I have complete faith when he has to make the good pass, at the right time, at the end of his run etc...

Don't get my post twisted when i mentioned Zidane and Dembele, because fuck me i should be shot dead if i even compared with those two. I was just talking about the criteria of them type of players.

And no, Ramires has sparks where he can make a great pass, or cross, like the cross to Drogba against Napoli when we went 1-0 was just amazing. But come on he will pull that off once out of 10 wont he unfortunately. And the other 9 crosses, well about 6 of them wont make it on the pitch. Okay slight exaggeration but he is very inconsistent with them type of things... well technical abillity. We can't have a good pass now and then, we need that consistent and reliable player in the deep, Ramires will never be able to take that on. But i do believe he can establish himself a place in this team and get better. I wrote Ramires off last season, i did joke about selling him with the pictures, but i did think at first he should be sold or dropped.

The thing what's so special about Ramires, is that he's so damn adaptable, i thought he would only have 2-3 decent games in DM as it's not really his place, but fuck he's gone out there and done it. He can do the job pretty much anywhere and still be effective, okay fair enough he was dull on the right wing but he still done decent and worked hard.

[Kojo 4,676]

I am worried that when ACON starts we will find out just how important he is to us.

Or that might be because we don't have another defensive midfielder except for Romeu who is very young and hasn't been the same since AVB departure?.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Personaly, I would love to see Ander Herrera next to Mikel. Herrera outplayed United with ease last season in Europa league. Such a quality player, strong, calm on the ball. Like Xabi. I think he would fit fantastic in this squad, very young. I believe he needs to move to higher level from Bilbao. Would be great if we were interested in him, but no links at all.

[Kojo 4,676]

Personaly, I would love to see Ander Herrera next to Mikel. Herrera outplayed United with ease last season in Europa league. Such a quality player, strong, calm on the ball. Like Xabi. I think he would fit fantastic in this squad, very young. I believe he needs to move to higher level from Bilbao. Would be great if we were interested in him, but no links at all.

Well i suppose we should go get him then, no one can have a great performance against united of course.

[JDY 1,290]

Ander Herrera is slightly overrated but I wouldn't be against going for him.

I don't know why some have come to the conclusion that Ramires is poor technically. He is infact very good technically but his problem is that he can't see the killer pass, and his decision making in the final third let's him down. You shouldn't need him to be able to split defences when we have Oscar, Mata and Hazard infront of him. He adds a good balance to the team alongside Mikel, and doesn't leave him exposed like Lampard did often. There's no written rule of the type of players you must have in the double pivot, but the more creative player who is tactically excellent and solid defensively are very hard to come by in today's market.

[Kojo 4,676]

Ander Herrera is slightly overrated but I wouldn't be against going for him.

I don't know why some have come to the conclusion that Ramires is poor technically. He is infact very good technically but his problem is that he can't see the killer pass, and his decision making in the final third let's him down. You shouldn't need him to be able to split defences when we have Oscar, Mata and Hazard infront of him. He adds a good balance to the team alongside Mikel, and doesn't leave him exposed like Lampard did often. There's no written rule of the type of players you must have in the double pivot, but the more creative player who is tactically excellent and solid defensively are very hard to come by in today's market.

Sorry but no matter how hard you try, you will not convince me that Ramires has a good technical abillity, it's not his vision what is a problem, he struggles making a decent pass, he will overhit it or just simply misdirect it. He did that a lot last season, which was very annoying. And don't even get me started on his dreadful crosses.

However as you said, the player we are asking for here, is extremely hard to come by, indeed it is, there's not many out there what can do the job. Joao Moutinho is often brought up, but come on, he's at Porto, unless you want to risk 600 billion, don't even fucking bother. But to be fair I've never seen the big hype with Moutinho, yeah fair play portugese league he can rip it up. However I've never seen him perform against good sides and in a different team, but to be honest I'll admit the only other time I've seen him play against those teams is international, and he's quite average to be honest. He looks nothing superior off the ball or on it, so i think he's a gamble anyway, but that's because i haven't really seen enough of him besides a few porto games in the porto league and international games.

Though honeslty besides him, i don't think there's anyone, who can be considered as realistic target that is.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Well i suppose we should go get him then, no one can have a great performance against united of course.

Im just telling that he could be very good here in PL. Sooner or later, City or United will pick him and then here will be crying why we didnt bought him...

But sure you would prefer who?

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Im just telling that he could be very good here in PL. Sooner or later, City or United will pick him and then here will be crying why we didnt bought him...

But sure you would prefer who?

Right now I'd prefer we keep Mikel - Ramires in the double pivot! Its working so far so if it isn't broke don't fix it.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Couldnt agree more, but maybe we will need some backup eventualy and this guy wouldnt be bad to have.

The problem with Rambo is that he cant dictate the midfield. And as we now have two very 'strong' defensive midfielders, we still concede lot of goals. That means, they dont realy do the job. Right now Im happy and have no problems with this pair, but eventualy I want more technicaly gifted midfield. Either Herrera, Bender, Benat, Banega, Strootman, Clasie, Fernandinho,...or even KDB if he can play there.

I hope you understand my point.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Couldnt agree more, but maybe we will need some backup eventualy and this guy wouldnt be bad to have.

The problem with Rambo is that he cant dictate the midfield. And as we now have two very 'strong' defensive midfielders, we still concede lot of goals. That means, they dont realy do the job. Right now Im happy and have no problems with this pair, but eventualy I want more technicaly gifted midfield. Either Herrera, Bender, Benat, Banega, Strootman, Clasie, Fernandinho,...or even KDB if he can play there.

I hope you understand my point.

Yeah I understand your point its just you said we concede a lot of goals despite having 2 defensive midfielders. If we get rid of one we will have less defensive cover then and could concede more. Its going to be interesting though when we go in to the market.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Sorry but no matter how hard you try, you will not convince me that Ramires has a good technical abillity, it's not his vision what is a problem, he struggles making a decent pass, he will overhit it or just simply misdirect it. He did that a lot last season, which was very annoying. And don't even get me started on his dreadful crosses.

However as you said, the player we are asking for here, is extremely hard to come by, indeed it is, there's not many out there what can do the job. Joao Moutinho is often brought up, but come on, he's at Porto, unless you want to risk 600 billion, don't even fucking bother. But to be fair I've never seen the big hype with Moutinho, yeah fair play portugese league he can rip it up. However I've never seen him perform against good sides and in a different team, but to be honest I'll admit the only other time I've seen him play against those teams is international, and he's quite average to be honest. He looks nothing superior off the ball or on it, so i think he's a gamble anyway, but that's because i haven't really seen enough of him besides a few porto games in the porto league and international games.

Though honeslty besides him, i don't think there's anyone, who can be considered as realistic target that is.

During Euro 2012, he was one of the best midfielders. Was Portugals third best player besides Ronaldo and Coentrao.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Yeah I understand your point its just you said we concede a lot of goals despite having 2 defensive midfielders. If we get rid of one we will have less defensive cover then and could concede more. Its going to be interesting though when we go in to the market.

Sometimes we concede goals because either Rambo or Mikel loses the ball. With more technicaly gifted player, this would happen less times and we would concede less. Something like attack is best defence.

But I think the main reason that we concede so many goals is because team is not yet organised and players dont realy understand each other. In one season or two, that will be fixed.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Sometimes we concede goals because either Rambo or Mikel loses the ball. With more technicaly gifted player, this would happen less times and we would concede less. Something like attack is best defence.

But I think the main reason that we concede so many goals is because team is not yet organised and players dont realy understand each other. In one season or two, that will be fixed.

I think SeB has said this a few times about the team lose the ball because they don't know how to defend with the ball. Maybe a player who is technically an upgrade on Ramires beside Mikel would help with that but the whole team has got to help. Football is a team game and if we are to defend with the ball the whole team has to improve together.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

I think SeB has said this a few times about the team lose the ball because they don't know how to defend with the ball. Maybe a player who is technically an upgrade on Ramires beside Mikel would help with that but the whole team has got to help. Football is a team game and if we are to defend with the ball the whole team has to improve together.

I think players like Mata would be too tired to work in defense also...but sure this is team work and we need to gel first, then we will defend and attack much better.

[Tomo 21,751]

I am worried that when he leaves we will find out just how important he is to us.

fixed

[Clevemayer 764]

It's actually shocking how bad this forum has gotten, you can't even post a point without getting told to grow up.

Grow up for what exactly you mindless prick?, fact of the matter is i never said anything abusive in my previous post, nothing at all, and I'm getting told to grow up because i'm describing a player and his performances 'appropriately'. That makes no sense what so ever, forum has gone downhill, never used to be like this.

yeah you're right, thats it, because ppl like just have no base on they're opinion and just go on with it, with no evidence what so ever, at most of the points you where criticising Mikel, Tiote is much worse then him, statistically and in reallity, so just give it up the henk.

You criticise him for not being offensive and aggressive enough, he has added both to it, and is still not as headless as you're tiote, I even rate Mulumbu higher than Tiote so waht? You will keep on going with it and you're only showing the world how you're losing slowly you're last bit of credibility... Hes play'n more offensive and play'n more forwardpasses and out of noth'n you're praising for his outings under AVB while you where slating him before? come on we're no politics, you just can't forget about what you've said a couple of days before.... really boy, I repeat just grow up...