Mikel John Obi

[DJames 729]

Mikel could have put the game to bed with three minutes remaining when he fired over

Ah Mikel when will you score!! I envision mass pandemonium the day he does

[kellzfresh 7,229]

My initial point was related to kellzfresh's remark: he seemed to mean that Mikel should get past his role to show his skills. That's unconceivable for me, Mikel has been given a role and he has to respect it whatever happens. And that's what he does (and the what he gets idiotic criticism for)

I didn't say he should leave his role and become a striker I said he can also give long passes to the strikers or attackers from deep. Which he is scared to do.

So basically you expect Mikel to chase the ball like a dummy, such as Cheick Tioté who leaves massive gaps and commits way too much fouls ? The most important thing when midfielders have to defend is not to be attracted by the ball. Mikel is brilliant to respect the positional instructions such as zonal marking (what 4-2-3-1 means for the two midfielders, especially given Mata's laziness).

He recovers the ball standing, barely dives into challenges... people seem to regard that as a clear statement of powerlessness. That's valuable to stay on one's feet!

I'm not so sure about Mikel's lack of aggressiveness, when he puts the foot in he barely loses the challenge because the opponent was stronger. And some of Mikel's tactical fouls such as the ones at the start of some games (classic shit to shut down your direct opponent) are sufficiently rash and reckless not for him to be regarded as weak to challenge for the ball.

Khedira is similar to Ramires in Madid's pattern: his role is to come out and press. Mikel has Alonso's role, to do the deep distribution. That's not Mikel's role to chase the ball like a headless chicken

Khedira has impressive stamina, he's decent to carry the ball up, fill the gaps, score the odd goal, recover the ball... But by no mean he's brilliant in one of those facets

@bold part is exactly my point. He seems to be given alonso's role and left out a huge part of the role which is to spray passes. He can do it, I've seen him do it for nigeria a lot. But at chelsea he gets scared to do it and dats a problem for me.

[The Rising Sun 709]

We need a DM who can bully opponent players, do some dirty work as well as have the vision for intelligent through balls....

Im not saying Luiz is that player, but he has, atleast for me, shown what we have been lacking for a few years now in DM....

Powerful, pushes away opponents, is commanding and can run fast....

Mikel covers spaces, thereby not affecting the opponent play or pressuring the opponent to lose the ball....

David Luiz does the opposite, he starts by covering space, then when a player is around, puts serious pressure.... he doesnt know the right moment to pressure or put in that tackle yet.... but he's almost there...

Dont think Mikel is what we need to become WC.... However, he has progressed well and will do well at a upper mid table club... Maybe even a CL club in a weaker league.

He is too much of a passive player in my opinion, and lacks command and personality in midfield.... i never liked him before, but over the years have grown to not dislike him, but slowly understand that we need to replace him gracefully, as he has done nothing wrong.... he just isnt the type of player we need in that position.

[bushman 2,043]

Yesterday, I watched the game cos of Mikel. One thing I must say, even though he can not score a goal even if his life would depend on it but he sure had a major part in his team. After all, Mikel is not necessarily there to score goals or is he ?

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Ah Mikel when will you score!! I envision mass pandemonium the day he does

Scored a pen last week with Nigeria in a friendly.

Some of the comments in this thread are depressing to read.

[Spike 12,049]

I usually don't post in this topic because @, & @SeB, post it for me.

[DJames 729]

Scored a pen last week with Nigeria in a friendly.

Some of the comments in this thread are depressing to read.

Good for him!!!

[The only place to be 11,313]

Some of the comments in this thread are depressing to read.

I find the comments on his range of passing to be boring. I've never really had a problem with his passing because he generally just lays it off to people who can do the exciting stuff better.

My problem has always been the stuff that doesn't have a metric on whoscored.com. The intangibles, the amount of shit he gives on the pitch and the effect he has on those around him. I watched Fellaini play in a deeper position than he has done in a while last night and he just seems to be more of what I want in that position than Mikel. He can do the same short passes but he also works harder and asserts himself on the game better. That type of thing is invaluable in lifting those around you.

Like I keep saying, I've never known a player so divide fans and I think it's along the lines of people who are impressed by his passing completion stats, and people who actually watch the games week-in and week-out and put more stock in what they see on the pitch.

[The only place to be 11,313]

How many shit does Fellaini gives on that one ? Could you give a rating ?

I do think that could be negative, below zero... Maybe you might eventually agree with me.

On yesterday night:

No, he wasn't playing in a deeper position, that was his usual *trequarista* position behind the main striker. The only thing that changes is that he drops to get where the ball is played.

And he had his usual passing competion rate, 79% for 54 passes, what doesn't particulary catch the eye.

Especially for the decent proportion of square balls

Everton was pretty poor yesterday, unable to manage the rythm of the game propely considering no one was able to dictate play. Osman had an average game, Gibson wasn't there to pick diagonals. Everton had a 69% pass completion, even if you don't like figures you might agree that it's pretty poor, especially for the dull and slow passing they played

The task to feed the channels and try to find width, to make the Southampton block sliding and try to exploit bad positioning/covering was given to Fellaini due to his central position. I'm not sure that was that efficient to be fair

Wow. That's an amazing picture. And a gif too. All I had was my eyes .

I'm not saying he's the greatest player on Earth and I'm not saying he's perfect, but I think he'd be better in our team than Mikel. I was actually surprised with his passing last night. I thought he kept the ball moving around the pitch well (especially in his own half).

To me he looked to be playing deeper, but if you tell me he was playing a trequatisa then who am I to disagree. When I watched him, he looked to be playing a lot deeper. In fact he seems to be all over the pitch which is fairly impressive.

Having looked at whoscored.com though, he seems to have an 80% pass completion percentage with 2 shots on target, 5 tackles and 3 interceptions. The problem is that anyone who watched that game and also watched either of our games against Southampton could see that it's hard to compare what he does in that team to what he'd do in our's. Firstly, he'd be asked to sit a lot deeper most of the time. But more importantly, he'd have better players alongside him who would get themselves open better. He'd also be up against teams who would sit deeper and put less pressure on him.

It's another of my problems with people's reliance on stats. They don't tell the whole story and they especially ignore the other players in the team and the opposition.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Luiz showed interesting stuff in terms of vertical passing... But otherwise that was pretty poor: often caught out of position and way too much fouls

You seem to consider that covering space is the easy way to get a big paycheck at Chelsea... don't you ever noticed the difference between games played with Meireles or Luiz as the deeper midfielder and the ones with Mikel, there's a slight difference in terms of freedom and space allowed to the attacking opponent between the lines

You realise that Luiz has only played less than 10 games in midfield don't you?

It's not about covering space, but also making a nuisance of yourself to disrupt the other team's rhythm (I'm not sure which graph best shows that for you) and getting the team moving on the front foot.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Could you just rate the gif ? At least say how weak do you rate Fellaini on the human being scale ? That was the what I expected the most in your answer...

You can't tell everything about that goal from one gif. You need to see the players' movement before the goal to see who was marking who and the dropped assignments.

On the 'human being scale', I've actually been mightily impressed in a couple of games (Man City 2010, Man United 2012) to really see Fellani put the team on his back. That is to say he's taken over games, be it in a defensive capacity or as a second striker, and drive his team forward whilst dominating the other team. Not all players have the capacity or the will to do that.

Sorry I don't have a gif or a chart for that.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

You're comparing different things: if Mikel gets to play more ambitious passes, you'll obviously agree that there'll be a part of waste. A bad transition may be an inaccurate pass from Mikel toward an attackers, pass being intercepted with 4 players upper to the ball.

In case of Cole you're right but that's over-running his role: he started from a deep position and saw the opportunity to ounumber forwards, when he did so he was likely to be covered somehow by a midfielder etc...

That's different from a player attempting and missing a pass where he shouldn't have done so, I mean Mikel wouldn't say "hey Eden, stay back I'm about to shit myself on that long ball and we'll face a counter attack".

In case of a run from behind that's something clearly noticeable by team mates, quite often you see the player gesturing to a team mate to order him to stay back. In case of a pass that's not predictable, that's the combination of the player and the environnement that makes the pass being intercepted.

So then the team has to start adapting when error is commited, nobody would be prepared like if there's someone pushing forward. That's a matter of a couple of seconds but that's often the time required for professional players to exploit a lost ball and counter clinically.

I don't know if I managed to be clear enough... ?

I understand, thats why I said in my previous post you need inteligent and responsible players on the pitch like Obi.

[The only place to be 11,313]

I was just asking about the fact not to give a single fuck, not jumping for the ball (what Ashley Cole does in open play even if against a 7 feet opponent) and turning his back to the play. For me that's couldn't care less attitude

Some should really put individual performances into the context of the game - that's the game they see on the pitch, not on whoscored.com.

Actually the whole Fellaini myth is based on those couple of games he played as a support central player last season, making people say that he played there most of the season. If Fellaini was impressive against MU, City or whoever ; he also had shockers against the likes of Wolves, Norwich, Wigan, Blackburn, Bolton last season.

But obviously Mikel's consistency to manage 9 passes out of 10 and so 60 times per game every week doesn't only makes him a weak human being but also an average sportsmen unable to maintain the same level of performance wether he plays against Barcelona at the Nou Camp or Norwich at home

Mikel has an average rating of 6.79 in league games on whoscored.com. Fellaini's is 7.56.

Throwing stats around without context is fun. Personally I like to factor in what I see on the pitch too, and I still haven't received an adequate answer as to why Mikel has still failed to win over such a large proportion of supporters.

[The Rising Sun 709]

Luiz showed interesting stuff in terms of vertical passing... But otherwise that was pretty poor: often caught out of position and way too much fouls

You seem to consider that covering space is the easy way to get a big paycheck at Chelsea... don't you ever noticed the difference between games played with Meireles or Luiz as the deeper midfielder and the ones with Mikel, there's a slight difference in terms of freedom and space allowed to the attacking opponent between the lines

Im not saying Mikel is a bad DM, i just dont think he is the pro-active type of midfielder we need....

Mikel's movements are very mechanised and repetitive, in a very passive sort of way...

If i had to be brutal, id say he is the Torres of Midfield.... BUT.... im not saying that..... (PLEASE DONT QUOTE ME ON THIS, ITS AN EXHAGGERATION BEYOND LIMITS)

I just dont think he is what our club needs moving forward....

When our game was more direct with drogba and co, he had a functioning role which fit the system to an extent.... His passive sitting back and covering spaces worked.....

With our new team style, we need aggression, bullying and a commanding personality in that position, which i dont think Mikel is....

Im not saying Luiz is, or will be that person, but we need a different kind of DM now.

Sometimes for a team to excel in a particular style, there are always some quality players that simply dont fit in the way they did before....

I still like the guy and he is not detrimental to our team when he plays, infact he does a decent shift..... But, IMO we need someone who's style is the polar opposite of Mikel.

And Meireles was a panic buy imo, not WC by any stretch of the Imagination, and Luiz has played 3-4 games there.... so cant judge....

[DDA 9,757]

You realise that Luiz has only played less than 10 games in midfield don't you?

It's not about covering space, but also making a nuisance of yourself to disrupt the other team's rhythm (I'm not sure which graph best shows that for you) and getting the team moving on the front foot.

Some people are completley wrapped up in their obsession for statistical comparison. I swear that they forget that the game is played by humans and not numbers. The only numbers I would bother comparing ate goals scored.

[JDY 1,290]

With our new team style, we need aggression, bullying and a commanding personality in that position, which i dont think Mikel is....

Im not saying Luiz is, or will be that person, but we need a different kind of DM now.

Étienne Capoue

[The only place to be 11,313]

Anyway in all farness I wouldn't give a single fuck if 90% of the opinion thinks that a player is shit if I'm convinced he's not. Because I'm not a sheep and because I also know that a fair proportion of those 90% are yes-men and naive followers who jumped on the bandwagon (whereas they didn't had a clue in the first place).

'Yes men and naive followers'. I know some of these people and they've supported this club long before you were born and know more about the game then you'll ever know. Disregarding them like that is disrespectful.

I guess that's partly aimed at me, seriously that makes me laugh as long as the only thing I actually do is illustrating my point with figures. Mocking stats really is the easy way to skirt a proper debate.

So is spewing them out without contextualising them.

[Kojo 4,676]

So after reading Sebs posts it all comes down to Mikel being the best DM in the world, because all he has done is look at every other DM in the world in a negative way.

Since when is he ever right anyway lmao, you go on about how bad Fellaini is, i bet he would come in this team and actually do well, that pretty much makes your 1000000000 words pointless if i must say.