Mikel John Obi

[capriccioso 2,545]

Thats exactly what an anchor man style defensive midfielder is supposed to do. Win the ball and then lay it off to a better player. Were people expecting him to be some kind of freak like Pirlo? IMO he's probably the closest any player can get to Makelele.

I would rather Mikel make 100 out of 100 3 metre long, safe, sidewards passes in a game rather than buy a more aggressive passer who'll only complete 70/100 and in the process leave us open to counter attacks.

[Clevemayer 764]

shooooockiiing... Mikel a good player.... at this forum?....

I've been away for far too long

[Fulham Broadway 16,845]

Vauable for certain games but would have been a complete waste of space trying to overturn a 3-1 deficit

[capriccioso 2,545]

shooooockiiing... Mikel a good player.... at this forum?....

I've been away for far too long

Mikel is probably our best midfielder bar Ramires. He's leagues ahead of Meireles and post knee injuries Essien, and post decline Lampard. McEachran's out on loan and Romeu can't buy himself a starting spot at the moment, so don't throw those names at me.

[Clevemayer 764]

Mikel is probably our best midfielder bar Ramires. He's leagues ahead of Meireles and post knee injuries Essien, and post decline Lampard. McEachran's out on loan and Romeu can't buy himself a starting spot at the moment, so don't throw those names at me.

you haven't been mentioned with that... sorry if I've offended you

[capriccioso 2,545]

you haven't been mentioned with that... sorry if I've offended you

Of course you haven't

You were expressing your opinion of Mikel, I disagree. That's all there is to it

[LDN Blue 7,903]

IMO he's probably the closest any player can get to Makelele.

I wouldn't go that far to describe Mikel's style, I think it's quite different from Maka's play but the way Mikel goes about his game is quite effective.

--

As I've said times before Mikel is a very good player. Though I think he's only needed in certain types of games. I think Mikel's required for the 'park the bus' teams, that dominate the midfield and try to come every so often. Mikel's good at breaking up play like that and being smart enough to kick start a counter.

Where we play teams that will be a lot more open I think Romeu's a better option. Romeu has the ability to drive forward better than Mikel and move forward. I know Romeu's fallen off in recent months, but when he did play he was very effective at what he did.

[capriccioso 2,545]

Mikel's got experience on his side though, Romeu doesn't. Mind you it would be suicide if our next manager decided to play Mikel every game; he's best used in the big games and the easier games. He should be getting ~ 30 starts a season.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Mikel's got experience on his side though, Romeu doesn't. Mind you it would be suicide if our next manager decided to play Mikel every game; he's best used in the big games and the easier games. He should be getting ~ 30 starts a season.

Yeah for sure, that's why I'd keep Mikel on next season and release Essien. Problem is, no-one knows what's going on with Romeu.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

^^

Romeu is injured according to RDM.

I think Mikel's worst problem is his tactical awareness. He never covers when one of our fullbacks or Luiz make a forward run and we are left wide open.

[Clevemayer 764]

Of course you haven't

You were expressing your opinion of Mikel, I disagree. That's all there is to it

sorry mate you're gett'n it all wrong... Mikel for me is a great footballer since day one and i stood with him through all times, and I've been bashed for it from many members of this board, and some of them now talk from him as a good player.. I'm only surprised

[capriccioso 2,545]

sorry mate you're gett'n it all wrong... Mikel for me is a great footballer since day one and i stood with him through all times, and I've been bashed for it from many members of this board, and some of them now talk from him as a good player.. I'm only surprised

My mistake, I thought you were anti-Mikel.. most people who don't like Mikel tend to expect a bit too much from him. What I try to point out is that he's given a specific role and he does it to perfection, no one else in the squad can play in that ultra defensive mode with such discipline. You try putting Essien or Ramires or Meireles there and they'll try to do too much (or in Meireles' case, too little), while Oriol isn't quite experienced enough yet and McEachran is too small to boss the midfield.

JO may not be the fastest but its not necessary to have an olympic sprinter in that position. He may be slow and predictable with his passing but its essential to see us keep the ball, and the more we keep the ball the less time the opponents have to score. He may not score often, but neither did Makelele.

[capriccioso 2,545]

Are you serious ? I already think the bashing of his "slow" style of play quite idiotic but what about reproaches about his tactical awareness ? I think it's something we cannot reproach him with since he gained a regular starter role after Essien's injury in 2008.

The most evident example in my opinion is the first half of the season under Ancelotti. If there's someone who made that Chelsea wasn't far under the 4th spot, it's not Ivanovic, Terry or Cech but really Mikel.

Full backs were higher than the wingers (That's why Malouda did not take entirely his wing because they would have been 2 players in the same area with Cole, it's was not especially because Malouda was a selfish useless lazy cunt). In the same time and very logically, the two center backs covered the flanks: Terry with Cole and Ivanovic with Bosingwa.

At times Terry and Ivanovic could be 30m away from each other.

Who was covering the axis ? Nobody else than Mikel who was subject to an amount of pressure who was indecent, beside that he managed to cope very well with it, especially because most of the time he received bricks from his partners he did manage to transform in proper passes.

We lost 3-1 to Wigan in 2009, Martinez was the first manager to understand why to beat Chelsea easily: block the full backs and put a high pressure on the axis. Last season the first one to adopt this tactic was Mick McCarthy when we beat the 2-0. Since the Wolves game, every team did adopt this tactic and the flanks were blocked and the axis put under pressure.

I think it's genuinly intelectual dishonesty (it's not personally against you) to reproach Mikel something considering of the context he plays very often: no support, over exposed, receives cinderblocks from his team mates. But he keeps the ball very well, Mikel has a better ball protection than Anelka, I think it's something not enough people really see to it's real worh. Mikel can keep the ball under pressure from 1 or 2 players easily. He wins almost everything in the air (maybe we can reproach him not having won a challenge against Yaya Touré at the Emptyhad during the second half, it'd be a fair blame) and his tackling did dramatically improved. Most of the time he manages to keep the ball under control after his tackle

Giving him the stick after one lost ball or misplaced pass is really opportunism considering all the work he makes for the team, the covering and the cleanest 1st distribution possible. It really seems he's the scapegoad and that people waits anxiously a sigle mistake, forgetting all the rest to say he's the reason of why the team struggles.

We saw Essien in a holding role since the game against Bowl Town, he made a decent job. But beside that he really seemed to need 20mn to get into every game since (the City one as well) and his tackling is maybe worse than Scholes'. It really will be a difficult decision to take, but at some point we can't keep two players having the same holding role especially because Mikel is far better in this register than Essien.

To be honest he seemed a different player right from the start of the preseason, did you notice ?

I think the main mistake of Villas Boas when he was in charge was to try to change everything in every player's game. He asked Mikel to go forward and leave his upfront position, quite often we saw him running forward with the ball to be available higher on the pitch. It was interesting but the timing was clearly bad conidering how important Mikel is for team balance.

After that he got injured, his father got abducted and he receive almost all the blame for his "mistake" versus Liverpool. I put mistake between " " because some seemed to say that Adam's reflex run was the one every Premier League midfielder would have also had. But clearly not, Adam's play is very specific in the way that at Blackpool he went forward with or without the ball almost everytime and provided support with his runs. It was 50/50, by making this run, Adam left an enormous space between him and became useless if Mikel put the ball to a Chelsea player where Adam was before his run.

As I said abode, it seemed that Mikel was given a different role as many other players. The mistake was to change Mikel's one and we saw it in transition phasis how crap we were. Apart from the fact the team is more organized under Roberto Di Matteo and more cohesive, we struggle less in transition phasis because we have Mikel.

I can only agree with you (also on the several other messages in this thread), especially for the second part. I did find the wankfest on Romeu really exagerated. He was very good against no opponent, no pressing whereas he was also unable to win a challenge due to his will to intercept instead of tackling.

And I wasn't fond of his will to create from the back, we can blame Mikel for all but the proper first distribution. Romeu misplaced passes and got high whereas he shouldn't have done it.

I don't understand why some people seems to want (as we say in french) le beurre, l'argent du beurre et la crémière ; translated by butter, butter money and creamer.

Right to the moment we have high and offensive full backs properly covered (Alex and Cahill I'm watching you), we NEED a holding midfielder, it's as simple as that. And I think the first half of the season showed sufficiently enough occasions to justify this holding midfielder presence in front of the back four.

But maybe can we also blame Mikel for all the lost games in the first half of the season, especially when he was injured ? It would be a fair point.

That is an awesome post

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I never got the Mikel hate. He's always been a solid, reliable DM, its not very often he has a poor game defensively and plays poorly in terms keeping the ball, which is all DM's are supposed to do. What did people expect him to do? Score a goal or get an assist every match?

I think the hate for him is similar to Kalou. Its because he's been here for years and shown little or no improvement whatsoever.

[capriccioso 2,545]

He doesn't need to improve, he's already within the top 5 defensive midfielders in the world. Mascherano, Busquets, Mikel, Pirlo, Xabi Alonso (in no particular order).

[LDN Blue 7,903]

SeB I love your analytical posts. You should write articles for this site, start with the importance & pro's/con's of Mikel

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Are you serious ? I already think the bashing of his "slow" style of play quite idiotic but what about reproaches about his tactical awareness ? I think it's something we cannot reproach him with since he gained a regular starter role after Essien's injury in 2008.

The most evident example in my opinion is the first half of the season under Ancelotti. If there's someone who made that Chelsea wasn't far under the 4th spot, it's not Ivanovic, Terry or Cech but really Mikel.

Full backs were higher than the wingers (That's why Malouda did not take entirely his wing because they would have been 2 players in the same area with Cole, it's was not especially because Malouda was a selfish useless lazy cunt). In the same time and very logically, the two center backs covered the flanks: Terry with Cole and Ivanovic with Bosingwa.

At times Terry and Ivanovic could be 30m away from each other.

Who was covering the axis ? Nobody else than Mikel who was subject to an amount of pressure who was indecent, beside that he managed to cope very well with it, especially because most of the time he received bricks from his partners he did manage to transform in proper passes.

We lost 3-1 to Wigan in 2009, Martinez was the first manager to understand why to beat Chelsea easily: block the full backs and put a high pressure on the axis. Last season the first one to adopt this tactic was Mick McCarthy when we beat the 2-0. Since the Wolves game, every team did adopt this tactic and the flanks were blocked and the axis put under pressure.

I think it's genuinly intelectual dishonesty (it's not personally against you) to reproach Mikel something considering of the context he plays very often: no support, over exposed, receives cinderblocks from his team mates. But he keeps the ball very well, Mikel has a better ball protection than Anelka, I think it's something not enough people really see to it's real worh. Mikel can keep the ball under pressure from 1 or 2 players easily. He wins almost everything in the air (maybe we can reproach him not having won a challenge against Yaya Touré at the Emptyhad during the second half, it'd be a fair blame) and his tackling did dramatically improved. Most of the time he manages to keep the ball under control after his tackle

Giving him the stick after one lost ball or misplaced pass is really opportunism considering all the work he makes for the team, the covering and the cleanest 1st distribution possible. It really seems he's the scapegoad and that people waits anxiously a sigle mistake, forgetting all the rest to say he's the reason of why the team struggles.

Wow. How did you get all that from one simple sentence? :confused:

I agree with the vast majority of what you wrote there. I actually am one of the people who have always defended him and I consider him as one of the best Chelsea players because I like his style of football.

I always ague with my chelsea fans friends that he was the most important player in our double winning season because he was simply instrumental in every single game against what was then called the big four. (I remember the game against Arsenal away where he had his best performance ever in a Chelsea shirt). He is truely the most underrated Chelsea player.

But despite always defending him, I have to admit that he has weaknesses as well. What I meant in my post is that this season, his covering has been very slow. This was most evident in the games against Liverpool and Arsenal. If you re-watch the match, you could obviously see that he almost never covered when David Luiz or Bosingwa surged forward. And that cost us.

[Wilson 358]

It's best for Mikel and more importantly Chelsea if he leaves. Hope he does.