Mikel John Obi

[Phil Driver 503]

Doesnt look good for Obi ,yesterday summed Chelsea up graphically in one game and two halves.

Some of us were aware of it before then ,but the 1st and the 2nd half emphasised his stats beyond doubt, 1st half awful and lost 1-0 ,2nd half dominant with two proper midfielders who worked together and pushed Spurs back and we dominated and won 1-0 , Jose said he could see what was wrong at H/T and he changed it and we dominated.

The slow sideways passes and the sitting back letting Spurs dominate was gone,our two midfielders dominated and pushed Spurs back.

This seven year experiment now looks over as Jose would have learned a lot yesterday and he saw what was wrong at Half Time (his words).

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Doesnt look good for Obi ,yesterday summed Chelsea up graphically in one game and two halves.

Some of us were aware of it before then ,but the 1st and the 2nd half emphasised his stats beyond doubt, 1st half awful and lost 1-0 ,2nd half dominant with two proper midfielders who worked together and pushed Spurs back and we dominated and won 1-0 , Jose said he could see what was wrong at H/T and he changed it and we dominated.

The slow sideways passes and the sitting back letting Spurs dominate was gone,our two midfielders dominated and pushed Spurs back.

This seven year experiment now looks over as Jose would have learned a lot yesterday and he saw what was wrong at Half Time (his words).

Right...come back when he starts again vs Steaua

[Phil Driver 503]

I have come back after our and his performance against Spurs ,to be honest he did what he always does ,the question is "Is that enough" .

When the best manager in the world is quoted as saying "I could see the problem at H/T and we changed" and the whole performance of the team changed ,surely it emphasises the problem we had and the change that made the difference ,our two midfielders pushed up and took the game to Spurs ,it was very obvious and the midfield was ours ,Spurs looked slow and Mikel like 2nd half and we dominated.

If Mikel plays against Steau we are in danger of a poor performance again,the firat half and the second half v Spurs showed that perfectly ,you do not need stats for that.

[zolayes 14,489]

Plus Ivanovic fails to cover for Luiz and track Siggaurdsson's run. Ivanovic is the main culprit for me. Not sure what Mikel did wrong, though.

took a long time to come up with that defence of Mikel ,,,Of course you can NEVER see anything wrong with his play ,,,You should

go to Spec Savers

[Sovieticus 743]

Love the quote:

Conceded a goal? Blame Mikel nooooow!

[Phil Driver 503]

If you are sitting back and letting the other team dominate they will create chances and then when we do gain possession it it results in a slow sideways pass they will recover their shape,if like in the second half you are pushing them back and you are attacking you will dominate and create chancesand their defenders will look slow and will be at fault.

You can't sit back and defend and not expect your opponents to create chances to score and Spurs did and won the first half 1-0 and dominated.

You can blame anyone for conceding a goal ,but the fact is if you are defending deep and letting your opponents control the game they will create chances.

With Mikel we sit back and other teams create chances and when we do win posession we are slow and sideways,yesterday showed this emphatically and supporters should have learned a lot about our game ,we had a big problem in the first half ,the manager saw it and changed and it changed the whole shape of the game in one simple but obvious move.

Lampard and Ramires completely dominated the midfield in the second half because they engaged the Spurs midfield and made them look slow and this put us on the front foot and instead of us blaming Ivan for enabling them to create a chance ,Spurs were looking at their defenders to see who was at fault for the chances we were creating.

[The only place to be 11,313]

took a long time to come up with that defence of Mikel ,,,Of course you can NEVER see anything wrong with his play ,,,You should

go to Spec Savers

Be careful mate.

Yesterday his removal changed the game. After two good games, he went back to his old self and that's exactly what some people were worried about. Needs to pick himself up and put his heart into his next appearance.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Be careful mate.

Yesterday his removal changed the game. After two good games, he went back to his old self and that's exactly what some people were worried about. Needs to pick himself up and put his heart into his next appearance.

Fair point. He certainly wasn't brilliant yesterday, but I think people need to re-watch the moment involving the Spurs goal - it was Lampard who lost his man rather than Mikel. Nevertheless it was a sloppy goal to concede.

With Mikel yesterday, his withdrawal was more tactical than down to his own individual performance. There was space to exploit and Mikel isn't the man to facilitate that. So whilst I would would agree that he looked more like his "usual self" yesterday, his withdrawal was moreso down to the fact Mata was better suited to the match than he was himself.

I'm not exactly a Mikel fanboy but I do appreciate his contribution to the team - but I have to concede that, whilst he wasn't our worst player yesterday (I thought Lampard had a lackadaisical game in truth), he certainly didn't put in the same some of panache we've seen in the last couple of matches. Typical Mikel, really!

[zolayes 14,489]

I don't really have anything against Mikel ...he is a decent squad player my objection is against posters who can see NO faults in their favourite

players but are quick to denigrate others ,,not just mikel but we are seeing it with Mata Hazard and others ..yet Willian is universally dammed

after only arriving.

[The only place to be 11,313]

I don't really have anything against Mikel ...he is a decent squad player my objection is against posters who can see NO faults in their favourite

players but are quick to denigrate others ,,not just mikel but we are seeing it with Mata Hazard and others ..yet Willian is universally dammed

after only arriving.

Don't worry about it. Take a step back and you'll realise that there's only a few posters who consistently defend him whilst the vast majority of supporters view him how you do. It's easy to get sucked into the never-ending debate about him, but it's really pointless.

Praise him when he does well, criticise him when he doesn't and ignore the rest of the bullshit fanboys bring to the debate.

[Phil Driver 503]

And I think people need to watch the reasoning for our improved performance in the second half and understand how and why that performance changed and why Spurs will be looking at why our players were not being picked up ,you can blame everyone but Mikel for any goal we ever conceded ,but the fact is if you sit deep and are slow ,you will concede chances and if you press and are quick and bright ,the opposition will be asking why Chelsea players were not being picked up ,as we saw yesterday .

[The Skipper 20,593]

I can't get past the image of Mikel freaking jogging! behind spurs attack when they scored. He should've been sprinting at 100% then.

Watch the build up to the goal and you'll see that Mikel was actually pressing to regain the ball.

Lamps lost his man and that's why they scored.

[Tomo 21,733]

I don't really have anything against Mikel ...he is a decent squad player my objection is against posters who can see NO faults in their favourite

players but are quick to denigrate others ,,not just mikel but we are seeing it with Mata Hazard and others ..yet Willian is universally dammed

after only arriving.

Same with Schurrle, he got fuck knows how much stick because people were paranoid he was some sort of devil forcing out KDB.

[Phil Driver 503]

Watch the build up to the goal and you'll see that Mikel was actually pressing to regain the ball.

Lamps lost his man and that's why they scored.

Watch the match and you will probably not see that in the second half we were pressing and dominating and it was Dembele and Paulinho who were losing their men .

If you are hanging back or being forced back you will lose the player you are supposed to be marking .

Ramires and Lampard dictated the game we didnt lose their players because we DOMINATED . Mikel was subbed as he was the problem and we dominated the game from then on .

[Strike 7,250]

Not sure how much MVG was going to be involved in the first place. His injury was a real shame, but Essien is capable of filling in for the appearances he would have made. Now if we were to lose Rami or Mikel, then our midfield would be very thin.

there will be problems though. Ramires has to start 100% of the meaningful games now.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

there will be problems though. Ramires has to start 100% of the meaningful games now.

He had to start 100% of the meaningful games before. Marco was in no way ready to play any big game unless we had injuries and were forced to play him.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Watch the match and you will probably not see that in the second half we were pressing and dominating and it was Dembele and Paulinho who were losing their men .

If you are hanging back or being forced back you will lose the player you are supposed to be marking .

Ramires and Lampard dictated the game we didnt lose their players because we DOMINATED . Mikel was subbed as he was the problem and we dominated the game from then on .

In that post I was merely commenting on who was the main culprit for the goal we conceded.

Mikel was substituted because of tactical reasons, it wasn't Mikel that forced the team to hang back - Mou clearly instructed and set his team up in that way; Ramires on the wing - Lampard and Mikel in the pivot is way too conservative. We were chasing the game and obviously Lampard is a goal scoring threat so he moved Ramires back in midfield and taking off Mikel was the logical move - I'm not disputing that we didn't dominate the midfield after this move.

[Strike 7,250]

He had to start 100% of the meaningful games before. Marco was in no way ready to play any big game unless we had injuries and were forced to play him.

Yeah.. That's true.