BlueLyon 9,359 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Stats say only the half of story...I have been defending Mikel for long time, but I think he will have to prove it to me again. As DM he is not shit at all, but his lack of passion to run and fight is terrible. He just doesnt care realy...Another note is that he went bitching about how bad Europa league is, bit after we won it he wanted to be right next to trophy like he earned it or sth...I think we need replacement, unless Mou gets him back to play hard. He was excelent last year, but this season he stagnated, even decreased. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Amblève. 4,995 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Mikel - Stands there hoping the opponent accidentally passes the ball to his feet, for him to turn around and give the ball to one of our defenders, often leading to slow build-up or a Juventus goal Same goes for a tree trunk.Jesus fucking Christ.I'm done with this thread. I'm absolutely done with it, smh. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
lucio 4,474 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Jesus fucking Christ.I'm done with this thread. I'm absolutely done with it, smh.its all true though Link to post Share on other sites
lucio 4,474 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Man City have a lower win % when Yaya Toure playing. So, that stats says nothing.i find that hard to believe. most of their bad results have come when he was injured. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
bleed_blue 136 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Man City have a lower win % when Yaya Toure playing. So, that stats says nothing.Which is obviously not true.Yaya Toure has played 31 games this season in PL for ManCity. They have won 20, drawn 7 and lost 4 of those. Win ratio 64.5% and points per game 2.16without him, they have played 6 games, winning 3, drawing 2 and losing 1 of those. Win ratio of 50% and points per game 1.83So, Clearly your claim is FALSEEven if it were not, you have to look at distribution. 31 vs 6 is not a fair comparison because 6 is too small a sample size.Edit: Here are the games they played without Yaya1. Arsenal away, City won 2-02. Fulham at home, City won 2-03. QPR away, game drawn 0-04. Liverpool at home, game drawn 2-25. Everton away, City lost 2-06. WBA at home, City won 1-0 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Fernando 6,137 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 i hope he is sold.Mikel is like Paulo Ferreira. Outlives many managers and they are not even top class like Lampard or Cech. It's funny that there are so many top players out there that have not won as much as Mikel and Paulo has won! Link to post Share on other sites
pHaRaOn 2,131 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 I genuinely belive that in the winter there was an article at WhoScored with statistic of african midfielders of Premier League, and City have lowest win percentage with Yaya Toure on the field. Link to post Share on other sites
Sheva. 5,373 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Ramires - Wins the ball back around 4 times per game I believe compared to Mikel's average of 2.7 (if I remember correctly) but also offers a lot to the attack; bombing forward and hassling opponents and laying the ball off to a creative player or sprinting past players and finishing off a counter-attack sequence himself.Ramires also commits shit load of fouls, many in dangerous positions, and dives into tackles all over the place for no reason. Not to mention his disgusting passing. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
bleed_blue 136 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Ramires also commits shit load of fouls, many in dangerous positions, and dives into tackles all over the place for no reason. Not to mention his disgusting passing.85.2% passing accuracy is disgusting passing. Thanks for letting us know.As for shit load of fouls, in Premier League this season (2012-2013)Ramires: 1.5 fouls per gameMikel: 1.6 fouls per game Link to post Share on other sites
Sheva. 5,373 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 85.2% passing accuracy is disgusting passing. Thanks for letting us know.As for shit load of fouls, in Premier League this season (2012-2013)Ramires: 1.5 fouls per gameMikel: 1.6 fouls per gameI knew someone would bring up stats, now this might work for other players in other leagues, but not for a team i watch twice every week. I don't need stats to tell me Ramires misses too many easy passes, or that he lunges into every single tackle, even those he can't win. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
bleed_blue 136 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 I knew someone would bring up stats, now this might work for other players in other leagues, but not for a team i watch twice every week. I don't need stats to tell me Ramires misses too many easy passes, or that he lunges into every single tackle, even those he can't win. Laughable really.Squawka says Ramires wins 57% of his duels while Mikel wins 53% of his duels (tackles, fouls etc). But what would they knowMay I suggest an eye examination? Link to post Share on other sites
Sheva. 5,373 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Laughable really.Squawka says Ramires wins 57% of his duels while Mikel wins 53% of his duels (tackles, fouls etc). But what would they knowMay I suggest an eye examination?First off i'm not even comparing Mikel and Ramires, i just saw Leif's post which completely ignored Ramires' flaws. Ramires is not a good passer* And while he gets an average 3 tackles a game he commits many fouls in the process - 53 in 35 games PL games, 21 in 8 EL games. Just the past 2 games alone, he's committed like 12 fouls * Mikel has a ridiculously high passing percentage, but a lot of times he passes sideways. Same applies with Ramires, when he tries a harder pass, he almost always fails. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Joe Cool 388 Posted May 18, 2013 Share Posted May 18, 2013 Can we all just come together to agree that our biggest issues lie in central midfield not just because of Mikel, but also because the rest of our central midfielders haven't been good enough this year and the fact that we don't have an actual playmaker. It is quite worrying, so hopefully our new manager will have a good idea of what he needs to do (in terms of this position). 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Strike 6,174 Posted May 19, 2013 Share Posted May 19, 2013 Ramires also commits shit load of fouls, many in dangerous positions, and dives into tackles all over the place for no reason. Not to mention his disgusting passing.Ramires will shine in a B2B role of a midfield 3. Something like this-------DMRamires OscarBut with Mata around I don't think 4-3-3 will be pursued here Link to post Share on other sites
Phil Driver 503 Posted May 19, 2013 Share Posted May 19, 2013 He didnt even make the squad today ,it is clear how the waiter rates him after managing him . Link to post Share on other sites
CHOULO19 24,332 Posted May 19, 2013 Share Posted May 19, 2013 The saying goes - "In a world of the blind, the squint rules". If Mikel is to be an out-and-out starter for Chelsea, he shouldn't be compared to our other midfielders. Compare him rather with Vidal, Fernandinho, Matuidi, Gonalons, Gundogan, Capoue etc and you see a big gulf in class. Chelsea are 'settling' for Mikel at DM. Do DM's around the world go unnoticed? Ball-winning midfielders rarely go unnoticed and I thought Mikel was a ball-winner? How often does he actually 'win' the ball? We don't notice Mikel, not because he's doing his job unnoticed, It is because he is not influencing the game enough and by influence I mean Tackles/InterceptionsI said I'm not getting into a debate in this thread, but I'm going to answer only you because I know you can debate open-mindedly. Mikel is NOT a ball winning midfielder, he is a holding midfielder. First of all, ball winning midfielders are a species that is nearing extinction. They just don't belong in today's game. Why? Well, take Luiz in midfield for instance, he tries to be a ball winning midfielder, always attempting to intercept, tackle and nick the ball off the opposition. Result? More often than not, he fails to win the ball and the player gets past him and can run at our back four with no one shielding them. If the opposition are a good organized team, we're likely to concede in that situation. You can still see ball winning midfielders in the championship and lower levels, but in the PL, the game is just much more dynamic and fast paced than what it used to be in the days of Roy Keane. Defenders don't tackle as much as they used to and CMs almost never go to ground anymore, in fact, tackles in midfield are so out of fashion that if you see a player go to ground and not get it 100% right, you directly think he could be off or at least get a yellow card. Instead, ball winning midfielders have been largely replaced by holding midfielders like Mikel. The first thing they teach kids in academies about defending nowadays is "Stay on your feet" "Do NOT commit to the challenge" because when a player commits to a tackle, he's giving the attacker a chance to get past him. There is a quote by Xabi Alonso that I like to use where he says tackling is not something that, as a holding midfielder, you look or try to do, but rather something you have to resort to sometimes if your man gets away from you or to correct a certain mistake. But in normal circumstances, a central midfielder should never go to ground. Instead, what holding midfielders do, is that they stay on their feet and just block the channels and passing angles and either force the man on the ball to a less dangerous area or force him to make a mistake or at least take the difficult option. As for the comparisons, half of the ones you mentioned are only there because they are "trending" now (Btw, Fernandinho and Vidal are more b2b; Vidal is basically a more dynamic Ramires with better technique). They had a a few good games this season and got a good reputation that they'd probably lose next season if they don't perform as they did this season. And of course, there are players that are better than Mikel. But that applies to every single position in our team bar GK and probably LB. Why doesn't anyone else say that we are "settling" for Luiz or Iva or Azpi or Rami or Oscar..etc? Because Mikel is just the 'easy' target because what he does, i.e. his role in the team, is not glamorous, it is not evident in particular incidents but rather the overall play. When you're arguing for Iva you can say: "Did you see that tackle he made in that game?" or for Rami: "Did you see that run?" but you can't say: "Did you see Mikel's 95% passing accuracy or the tactical discipline he showed to not leave gaps between himself and the back four during the whole 90 mins?" because you simply can't 'see' that in individual incidents. Now I'm not saying that Mikel does not have his flaws, because he certainly does. For me his biggest flaw is that he is slow to react at times, and like said there are better defensive midfielders than him out there. But he also isn't an average or below average player; in fact in the league right now, bar Carrick, you can't find a holding midfielder who is better than Mikel. he is a good player who is very good at what he does. He's not world-class, but he is certainly not our biggest problem at the moment. But unfortunately, with the type of non-glamorous role he has (and with Kalou gone), he's often going to be the scapegoat for the million other problem that team is having. Link to post Share on other sites
lucio 4,474 Posted May 19, 2013 Share Posted May 19, 2013 I said I'm not getting into a debate in this thread, but I'm going to answer only you because I know you can debate open-mindedly. Mikel is NOT a ball winning midfielder, he is a holding midfielder. First of all, ball winning midfielders are a species that is nearing extinction. They just don't belong in today's game. Why? Well, take Luiz in midfield for instance, he tries to be a ball winning midfielder, always attempting to intercept, tackle and nick the ball off the opposition. Result? More often than not, he fails to win the ball and the player gets past him and can run at our back four with no one shielding them. If the opposition are a good organized team, we're likely to concede in that situation. You can still see ball winning midfielders in the championship and lower levels, but in the PL, the game is just much more dynamic and fast paced than what it used to be in the days of Roy Keane. Defenders don't tackle as much as they used to and CMs almost never go to ground anymore, in fact, tackles in midfield are so out of fashion that if you see a player go to ground and not get it 100% right, you directly think he could be off or at least get a yellow card. Instead, ball winning midfielders have been largely replaced by holding midfielders like Mikel. The first thing they teach kids in academies about defending nowadays is "Stay on your feet" "Do NOT commit to the challenge" because when a player commits to a tackle, he's giving the attacker a chance to get past him. There is a quote by Xabi Alonso that I like to use where he says tackling is not something that, as a holding midfielder, you look or try to do, but rather something you have to resort to sometimes if your man gets away from you or to correct a certain mistake. But in normal circumstances, a central midfielder should never go to ground. Instead, what holding midfielders do, is that they stay on their feet and just block the channels and passing angles and either force the man on the ball to a less dangerous area or force him to make a mistake or at least take the difficult option. As for the comparisons, half of the ones you mentioned are only there because they are "trending" now (Btw, Fernandinho and Vidal are more b2b; Vidal is basically a more dynamic Ramires with better technique). They had a a few good games this season and got a good reputation that they'd probably lose next season if they don't perform as they did this season. And of course, there are players that are better than Mikel. But that applies to every single position in our team bar GK and probably LB. Why doesn't anyone else say that we are "settling" for Luiz or Iva or Azpi or Rami or Oscar..etc? Because Mikel is just the 'easy' target because what he does, i.e. his role in the team, is not glamorous, it is not evident in particular incidents but rather the overall play. When you're arguing for Iva you can say: "Did you see that tackle he made in that game?" or for Rami: "Did you see that run?" but you can't say: "Did you see Mikel's 95% passing accuracy or the tactical discipline he showed to not leave gaps between himself and the back four during the whole 90 mins?" because you simply can't 'see' that in individual incidents. Now I'm not saying that Mikel does not have his flaws, because he certainly does. For me his biggest flaw is that he is slow to react at times, and like said there are better defensive midfielders than him out there. But he also isn't an average or below average player; in fact in the league right now, bar Carrick, you can't find a holding midfielder who is better than Mikel. he is a good player who is very good at what he does. He's not world-class, but he is certainly not our biggest problem at the moment. But unfortunately, with the type of non-glamorous role he has (and with Kalou gone), he's often going to be the scapegoat for the million other problem that team is having. every time he comes up against top opposition this season he has been eaten alive. city , shaktar , juve. he is not good enough to win us the midfield battle against the elite teams. he should be a squad player at best. if he is our starting dm we will always struggle. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Popular Post BlueLyon 9,359 Posted May 19, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted May 19, 2013 I said I'm not getting into a debate in this thread, but I'm going to answer only you because I know you can debate open-mindedly.Mikel is NOT a ball winning midfielder, he is a holding midfielder. First of all, ball winning midfielders are a species that is nearing extinction. They just don't belong in today's game. Why? Well, take Luiz in midfield for instance, he tries to be a ball winning midfielder, always attempting to intercept, tackle and nick the ball off the opposition. Result? More often than not, he fails to win the ball and the player gets past him and can run at our back four with no one shielding them. If the opposition are a good organized team, we're likely to concede in that situation. You can still see ball winning midfielders in the championship and lower levels, but in the PL, the game is just much more dynamic and fast paced than what it used to be in the days of Roy Keane. Defenders don't tackle as much as they used to and CMs almost never go to ground anymore, in fact, tackles in midfield are so out of fashion that if you see a player go to ground and not get it 100% right, you directly think he could be off or at least get a yellow card. Instead, ball winning midfielders have been largely replaced by holding midfielders like Mikel. The first thing they teach kids in academies about defending nowadays is "Stay on your feet" "Do NOT commit to the challenge" because when a player commits to a tackle, he's giving the attacker a chance to get past him. There is a quote by Xabi Alonso that I like to use where he says tackling is not something that, as a holding midfielder, you look or try to do, but rather something you have to resort to sometimes if your man gets away from you or to correct a certain mistake. But in normal circumstances, a central midfielder should never go to ground. Instead, what holding midfielders do, is that they stay on their feet and just block the channels and passing angles and either force the man on the ball to a less dangerous area or force him to make a mistake or at least take the difficult option. As for the comparisons, half of the ones you mentioned are only there because they are "trending" now (Btw, Fernandinho and Vidal are more b2b; Vidal is basically a more dynamic Ramires with better technique). They had a a few good games this season and got a good reputation that they'd probably lose next season if they don't perform as they did this season. And of course, there are players that are better than Mikel. But that applies to every single position in our team bar GK and probably LB. Why doesn't anyone else say that we are "settling" for Luiz or Iva or Azpi or Rami or Oscar..etc? Because Mikel is just the 'easy' target because what he does, i.e. his role in the team, is not glamorous, it is not evident in particular incidents but rather the overall play. When you're arguing for Iva you can say: "Did you see that tackle he made in that game?" or for Rami: "Did you see that run?" but you can't say: "Did you see Mikel's 95% passing accuracy or the tactical discipline he showed to not leave gaps between himself and the back four during the whole 90 mins?" because you simply can't 'see' that in individual incidents.Now I'm not saying that Mikel does not have his flaws, because he certainly does. For me his biggest flaw is that he is slow to react at times, and like said there are better defensive midfielders than him out there. But he also isn't an average or below average player; in fact in the league right now, bar Carrick, you can't find a holding midfielder who is better than Mikel. he is a good player who is very good at what he does. He's not world-class, but he is certainly not our biggest problem at the moment. But unfortunately, with the type of non-glamorous role he has (and with Kalou gone), he's often going to be the scapegoat for the million other problem that team is having. I think players like Vidal, Bender, Martinez, Capoue are all ball winning midfielders. They run through whole match, cover all midfield, track and take ball from oppositio every game. Mikel is holding mid because he just sits deep and marks, but football nowdays is very fast and with few passes, everyone goes past Mikel. Because to stop fast passing game, you have to press on opponent (something like Vidal does) while Mikel just goes fuck all. This team is realy weak in pressing and I think that is why Mikel wont have good time here under Mou. Both Khedira/Xabi can press, Essien was engine while Cambiasso was master tackler and nothing went past him during Mou's Inter. Mikel last year or under Ancelotti was great, but thing is that he has downgraded since. He isnt shit, but he wont fit our style of play nor our needs. He is great for counter system 4:3:3 where all three mids can press/defend (Lamps-Mikel-Ballack). In this team, he gets exposed and does nothing. Our team will have only one real destructor in 4:2:3:1 and Mikel is too poor to be one. He needs other players to help him, while Vidal or Bender are much better at doing things alone. Having pair of Vidal-Strootman, Bender-Fernandinho or DeRossi-Oscar would be fine, but before we buy anything I would give Mou time in pre season to try Romeu-Oscar and then decide. If Mikel will be shit, sell him and get someone like Diame as backup with Romeu first choice. And at Chelsea 4:3:3 system wont work because of Mata, while I hope Mou wont have any ideas of selling Mata because of that. 7 Link to post Share on other sites
Popular Post Kojo 4,676 Posted May 19, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted May 19, 2013 I said I'm not getting into a debate in this thread, but I'm going to answer only you because I know you can debate open-mindedly. Mikel is NOT a ball winning midfielder, he is a holding midfielder. First of all, ball winning midfielders are a species that is nearing extinction. They just don't belong in today's game. Why? Well, take Luiz in midfield for instance, he tries to be a ball winning midfielder, always attempting to intercept, tackle and nick the ball off the opposition. Result? More often than not, he fails to win the ball and the player gets past him and can run at our back four with no one shielding them. If the opposition are a good organized team, we're likely to concede in that situation. You can still see ball winning midfielders in the championship and lower levels, but in the PL, the game is just much more dynamic and fast paced than what it used to be in the days of Roy Keane. Defenders don't tackle as much as they used to and CMs almost never go to ground anymore, in fact, tackles in midfield are so out of fashion that if you see a player go to ground and not get it 100% right, you directly think he could be off or at least get a yellow card. Instead, ball winning midfielders have been largely replaced by holding midfielders like Mikel. The first thing they teach kids in academies about defending nowadays is "Stay on your feet" "Do NOT commit to the challenge" because when a player commits to a tackle, he's giving the attacker a chance to get past him. There is a quote by Xabi Alonso that I like to use where he says tackling is not something that, as a holding midfielder, you look or try to do, but rather something you have to resort to sometimes if your man gets away from you or to correct a certain mistake. But in normal circumstances, a central midfielder should never go to ground. Instead, what holding midfielders do, is that they stay on their feet and just block the channels and passing angles and either force the man on the ball to a less dangerous area or force him to make a mistake or at least take the difficult option. As for the comparisons, half of the ones you mentioned are only there because they are "trending" now (Btw, Fernandinho and Vidal are more b2b; Vidal is basically a more dynamic Ramires with better technique). They had a a few good games this season and got a good reputation that they'd probably lose next season if they don't perform as they did this season. And of course, there are players that are better than Mikel. But that applies to every single position in our team bar GK and probably LB. Why doesn't anyone else say that we are "settling" for Luiz or Iva or Azpi or Rami or Oscar..etc? Because Mikel is just the 'easy' target because what he does, i.e. his role in the team, is not glamorous, it is not evident in particular incidents but rather the overall play. When you're arguing for Iva you can say: "Did you see that tackle he made in that game?" or for Rami: "Did you see that run?" but you can't say: "Did you see Mikel's 95% passing accuracy or the tactical discipline he showed to not leave gaps between himself and the back four during the whole 90 mins?" because you simply can't 'see' that in individual incidents. Now I'm not saying that Mikel does not have his flaws, because he certainly does. For me his biggest flaw is that he is slow to react at times, and like said there are better defensive midfielders than him out there. But he also isn't an average or below average player; in fact in the league right now, bar Carrick, you can't find a holding midfielder who is better than Mikel. he is a good player who is very good at what he does. He's not world-class, but he is certainly not our biggest problem at the moment. But unfortunately, with the type of non-glamorous role he has (and with Kalou gone), he's often going to be the scapegoat for the million other problem that team is having. Saying Mikel bar Carrick is the best at what he does is just not right at all.Have you ever watched any other players this season? Look at players like Wilshere and Arteta, they do a much better job than Mikel, work hard to win the ball, and that's not there primary job, they keep the ball and get the game flowing. What about Yohan Cabaye? Fantastic player he really is, always gets the game going, works hard, covers, and gets the ball moving forward.In truth most defensive midfielders are different, we can't really fit them in catagorys, like Javi Garcia who does the dirty work, doesn't seem to stay on the ball much, whereas Scott Parker chases all day and tries to win the ball back however he likes to stick on the ball a lot and look for options and switch plays.Mikel offers very little. Nathan Ake this game showed a lot more than Mikel has ever done, and yeah sure they might have different jobs, but in the case of doing there actual job Ake actually done it with alot more than just sitting back.You know i would actually respect Mikel a lot more if he could get the ball forward, but he's terrible at it, I mean what he does is like Javi Garcia does just passes the ball back, but at least Garcia can do the shifts whereas Mikel doesn't. That's most of all why I find Mikel useless most of the time, because he really offers very little. 5 Link to post Share on other sites
Strike 6,174 Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 @CHOULO19,I understand that sometimes committing to a tackle can give the opponent an opportunity to get past but I think ball-winning or atleast interceptions count under a holding-midfielders job description. Vidal and Fernandinho get stuck into 50-50's and come away with the ball. Mikel doesn't have that ability nor the tendency to go for the ball. He's a holding midfielder - who doesn't recover possession. Chelsea are settling for Mikel in DM. He's not mobile enough,(that's also a reason why he doesn't win or intercept the ball) and also, he backs off instead of cutting off the angles as you said. Very often he backs off all the way into the penalty box to slot in as a 3rd CB, which is one more reason why Chelsea lose control of the gamesbtw, Arteta, Lucas, Yacob, Schneiderlein, Sandro all better for me this season 1 Link to post Share on other sites
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