This Saturday, once the Drogba had wrapped up all three points for us at home, I started pondering imponderables like,
- Who will City play in the center of midfield?
- What would Sergio Busquets look like if he occasionally got off the pitch to stand up and look around?
- Who is the most underrated player in the Chelsea side?
While even Mancini seems to have no definitive answer to question 1, the answers to questions 2 and 3 look surprisingly similar.
In a bid to try out the nifty Guardian chalkboards and simultaneously shed some light on our midfield play, I’ve done some research about our metronome in midfield, John Obi Mikel.
Here is an interesting statistic from our game against Stoke on Saturday. John Obi Mikel was the player who had the most possession. He made a total of 106 passes on Saturday. 103 were successful. Against Wigan, away from home, where it was to be expected that we would see a lot less of the ball, he made 46 passes, 44 successful. Here’s a break down of his passing against Stoke and Wigan respectively.
The great thing about Mikel is that he does the simple things amazingly well. He is exceptionally composed on the ball. There was a moment in the match against Stoke when the ball was played into him awkwardly bouncing off the turf as he was being closed down by Kenwyne Jones. In a beautiful show of craft, he played the ball hard into the ground and stepped past Jones, thus allowing the ball to bounce over Jones and to his feet. Not only did he keep possession but he also managed to maneuver into the space behind Jones. And as for his short passing, the statistics above speak for themselves. Who says football is all about scoring goals?
At 6 feet and 3 inches, he is quite dominant in the air which is a very useful quality for a holding midfielder. He’s also come a long way since that brawl against Arsenal in the Carling Cup final, and these days plays with a lot more discipline.
His defensive positioning and ability to read the game have also improved dramatically. Let me illustrate in the context of much sterner opposition than Stoke or Wigan, courtesy Zonal Marking. He are his defensive figures, i.e. interceptions and tackles, from last season’s 2-0 victory at home against Arsenal.
Pretty good, given how much Arsenal like to pass the ball around. And then, here are his passing stats from the same game.
Again impressive for a holding player, in a match where the Blues had around 40% possession. Once again, it underscores his ability to read the game and keep possession of the ball calmly.
In a 4-3-3 that features Lampard, Essien and Malouda, players who like to bomb forward into opposition territory, Mikel does a vital, but often ignored job for this Chelsea side, where, with Essien, he forms one half of the crucial double pivot in mid-field. Add to that the fact that he brings his game, immaterial of the opposition and you have in Mikel an extremely effective holding mid-fielder. His effectiveness though should come as no surprise to Chelsea fans. He did learn from the absolute best, a little man by the name of Makelele.
But, while I greatly admire the job he does for Chelsea, those of you who caught the Under-20 World Cup in 2005 would have seen a very different Mikel from what you see today. He was Nigeria’s biggest asset in attack, pulling strings from the middle of mid-field, and was voted the second best player of the tournament, behind Lionel Messi. Maybe Mourinho saw something in him that everyone else had missed. But then, maybe he just needed someone to deputize for Makelele.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?