ifarka, the reason we won the double was our incredible run at the end of the season due to mikel getting injured and ballack taking his spot.
In the CL final it was a game catered to him and he put in a good perfomance. Europa league I don't quite know what you mean as he didn't do much either way.

Mikel has been a hinderance and if not for him I think we would of had more success.

And the argument"so you know better than all those managers who picked him doesn't fly with me" As soon as matic came back mourinho stopped playing him, and managers consistently make mistakes.
I genuinely think that most decent posters on here could do chelseas starting line up, formation and substitutes through 90 minutes but would struggle with man management and other aspects of the game.
Mourinho putting mikel on is a hinderance, there is no1 I would rather have running our club but to say he is devoid of making mistakes is silly.

Seeing old discussions about Mikel is fascinating.

I didn't see what his value was for so long until the pressing phenomenon. It was his ability to trap the ball under pressure to avoid turnovers/protect JT who wasn't a high line defender. It was the one good trait he had but it didn't fully dawn on me how important that was at the time.

Also quite ironic to me how Jorginho's everything Mikel wasn't in both phases of the game, his offensive & defensive game is better (for a big guy Mikel really should've been better defensively). The one big issue he has is losing the ball carelessly under pressure - the one thing Mikel rarely did

Lol why has this come up on my recents devil! Taking a trip down memory lane? Haha.
I still think Mikel is one of the worst players we’ve ever had at the club. Was terrible under pressure. Rarely protected the back four and disagree with near enough everything you’ve said haha. Us bloody footy fans ay

I think that DA must have had a very early Christmas tipple ! laugh>

Haha nothing wrong with that

LOL. This and a few other oldies were up on the recent article views yesterday. Someone having a memory lane trip.

He was very good at keeping the ball under pressure, his pass completion stats are still pretty ridiculous, doing something positive with it? Different story lol

Mikel didn't have a defensive bone in his body so I never understood why we insisted on playing him as our DM under every manager.

He always played as an attacking midfielder for Nigeria. Must have been really confusing for him

It certainly was for me!

Superb

Same. I couldn't figure it out for years. I theorize it had to be his ability to shield the ball which allowed our D-line (which had a slow JT in it) to advance with less risk. That has to be the reason why.

I hope we get an answer from one of our managers back then one day on why they selected Mikel, cos it is a fascinating question. Too many of our managers, top class ones, trusted him in that specific role..... it can't be an emperors new clothes situation with all of them

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