It could have been

Cesar Ivan Cahill Cole

Matic Luiz Ramires

That for me would have been a lot more solid, than having that sideshow Bob running the deck

 

I agree, although Jose either doesn't trust in Ash or doesn't trust in Ivan's ability at CB anymore.

I believe that it is time to move on.

 

My faith in Mikel was shot down back in 2011-2012 when AVB took charge of the team and he failed to make his mark in the team when Essien was out for 6 months. It was his time to flourish but he never did. At first it was okay but then it reached the Valencia game and he was running around in circles chasing and marking no one.

 

He is very good on the ball but off the ball he isn't as good. He doesn't seem to share the ambition that many of the midfielders have had in this club, Matic has come and already looked like a big improvement on him. The West Ham game this season really did it for me when he slowed down the tempo every time he had the ball. He doesn't really provide any sort of flair or creativity at all, not even an ounce of it. So at the end of the season I really hope we just let him go and say good bye, I don't think having him here will help. Squad players are needed but Mikel doesn't seem that he's able to fit in anywhere. Let him go and give someone else a chance, I think our main man will be Matic from now on.

Revisionist nonsense.

Jose's first choice DM in his first spell at the club- MAKALELE.

Grant's 1st choice - Maka

Maka left and the only competition Mikel faced for his place was an oft injured Ess.

Scholari started with Essien ,who then proceeded to get injured and Mikel got the nod. Ess returns from injury and Mikel is back on the bench.

Guus' 1st choice -Lampard,Essien and Ballack. He even used Ballack as DM rather than playing Mikel there.

Carlo's 1st season- tried quite a few players at DM including Ballack and Deco. None of the players were a fit for that position and Mikel got the job.

Carlo's 2nd- We were thread bare and had let go of a lot of our players.Mikel was first choice here and what a great season that turned out to be!

AvB 1st choice -Romeu

Robbie's 1st choice-Mikel .

Jose's 2nd spell- Mikel has to compete with an ancient Lampard,an injured Ginkel, a loaned out Romeu and a b2b Ramires and still cannot be called a 1st string player. Matic is a recent purchase and has already cemented his place in the team.

So 2 seasons Mikel can claim to being an undisputed starter-08/09 ,10/11 and Robbie's tenure. In 10/11 it had got to a point where even Zhirkov played in CM.

Chelsea have not really invested in the CM positions since Maka left. Mikel had to compete with players who were not actual DMs and considering we played a formation where a DM was a must,it requires no stretch of imagination as to why Mikel has started as much as he has. The position Mikel plays in has been fairly weak for years.The managerial merry-go-round at Chelsea and our board's tendency to just wing it have contributed heavily as well.

José played Mikel a fair bit in 06-07. He featured regularly under Guus too if I remember correctly. To name two big games off the top of my head, the semi-final first leg against Barça and FA Cup Final.

I agree with ashwinv. The two most successful seasons in our club's history saw Mikel start regularly. Not the best argument there from you.

Edited February 18, 201412 yr by BellettiBullet

Huh? The OP said he was consistently chosen to play under all very succesful managers. None of those managers post Jose  have stayed long enough to see to the overhaul of the squad.They went with the players available and most of them chose other options.Injuries to Essien in08/09 and a really thin squad in 10/11are when he was first choice.

Since Maka left Mikel was the only player capable of playing in that position.

Stating that Mikel has got a boat load of starts as some sort of vindication for his continued presence at the club is frankly ridiculous.There was no-one else to do the job.

No one else to do the job? Are you really suggesting Chelsea would not dip into the transfer budget and buy another central midfielder and offload Mikel if they didn't think he was good enough to play for the club?

I believe that it is time to move on.

The West Ham game this season really did it for me when he slowed down the tempo every time he had the ball. He doesn't really provide any sort of flair or creativity at all, not even an ounce of it.

Pairing Mikel with Ramires in that game really killed it for us. And honestly I've never seen a CM make a forward run, receive the ball and pass it backwards as often as Mikel in that WHam game. I think he has a role to play though - generally when Jose switches to 4-3-3 to protect a lead.

Mikel seems like a nice guy who loves chelsea, I can't dislike him for that reason. But he doesn't fit our system, he's been ok in the past when the team played differently. The fact is that he's been poor this season. He's started 11 games, 5 of those we've lost, 2 drawn, 4 won. Mostly not against difficult opposition, so basically the games we've tripped up in he's started. So as a percentage we won 36% of the games he's started and lost 45%. When you compare that to the 27 games he hasn't started, 21 wins, 2 losses (77% win rate and 7% loss). I know these are just numbers and there are other factors, but having seen most of these games you can see how he doesn't work in our team, all our other players play best when the games being played at a fast tempo, mikel's thing is slowing tempo, he works terribly with our 3 attacking midfielders. He's been good for the club in the past, but doesn't work well with our current crop, so I think he should go in the summer, say thanks to him and let him go excel in a team he will work well with.

My thoughts exactly!

I think we should just bring back Jokanovic and be done with it. 

I think we should just bring back Jokanovic and be done with it.

Remember his disallowed goal away to Sunderland? I was gutted when that didn't count.

The worst Chelsea player of the 21st century?

Edited February 18, 201412 yr by mactheknife

Remember his disallowed goal away to Sunderland? I was gutted when that didn't count. The worst Chelsea player of the 21st century?

 

I had a season ticket in the shed lower with my Dad when he was at Chelsea, there was a bloke behind us who every game would moan about the same players every time moaning about the same things, so whenever he would shout out "oh for f**k sake Jokanovic" me and my Dad took to calling out things like "Unlucky Jokie, good effort" and stuff like that just because the bloke got on our tits... Because of this I actually remember Jokanovic with an odd fondness. 

Edited February 18, 201412 yr by ForeverCarefree

I had a season ticket in the shed lower with my Dad when he was at Chelsea, there was a bloke behind us who every game would moan about the same players every time moaning about the same things, so whenever he would shout out "oh for f**k sake Jokanovic" me and my Dad took to calling out things like "Unlucky Jokie, good effort" and stuff like that just because the bloke got on our tits... Because of this I actually remember Jokanovic with an odd fondness.

Yeah my Dad is a Middlesbrough fan, but he was his favourite player just because of the over the top abuse he got. I remember my dad trying to make me get him on the back of my shirt in 2000/01, but I for some reason opted for Alber Ferrer.

Jokanovic became a symbol of our lack of success, mis-management and ills of sacking Luca. In much the same way that Jon Obi is used as the scape goat of our cavalier board room management since 2007, something which has resulted to under investment in the CM department.

Wasn't Mikel brilliant for Gus or am I imagining that?  Just wish he could have played like that more often.  What frustrates me about him is he's consistently average, not usually terrible and not usually great - but he had so much potential.  It's almost as if his personality is too nice to be a monster on the pitch.

I wish he had some aggression and determination in his game.

I had a season ticket in the shed lower with my Dad when he was at Chelsea, there was a bloke behind us who every game would moan about the same players every time moaning about the same things, so whenever he would shout out "oh for f**k sake Jokanovic" me and my Dad took to calling out things like "Unlucky Jokie, good effort" and stuff like that just because the bloke got on our tits... Because of this I actually remember Jokanovic with an odd fondness. 

I honestly used to think his instructions were "go on the pitch, pass to the opposition anytime you get the ball, kick anything that moves, get booked, get booed. "

Yeah my Dad is a Middlesbrough fan, but he was his favourite player just because of the over the top abuse he got. I remember my dad trying to make me get him on the back of my shirt in 2000/01, but I for some reason opted for Alber Ferrer.

Jokanovic became a symbol of our lack of success, mis-management and ills of sacking Luca. In much the same way that Jon Obi is used as the scape goat of our cavalier board room management since 2007, something which has resulted to under investment in the CM department.

 

I absolutely adored Ferrer as a player, he was very similar to Ferreria in that he had a couple of really solid seasons at right back and then become a utility player occasionally playing at left back. 

 

He used to have a song sung to the tune of Rupert the Bear didn't he. 

 

Jokanovic was a funny player, we was really skimping on transfers around that time such as De Lucas being our only summer signing one year on a free because there was no funds.

 

We had Jokanovic and Dalla Bona at the same time and just as the fans were really starting to get behind Dalla Bona he decided to f**k off back to Italy to Milan for only £1m and his career just nose dived from then. 

 

I honestly used to think his instructions were "go on the pitch, pass to the opposition anytime you get the ball, kick anything that moves, get booked, get booed. "

 

I don't know what you're talking about Jokanovic was a God among men in that Chelsea side.  

Yeah, if that god was the flute playing wuss Pan....

Looks like Stamford blue made 10 accounts.

Ah how predictable, it's the standard flawless syllogism I have come to expect:

 

- Chelsea perform poorly

- Mikel plays

- Therefore Chelsea's poor performance was Mikel's fault

 

QED

I had a season ticket in the shed lower with my Dad when he was at Chelsea, there was a bloke behind us who every game would moan about the same players every time moaning about the same things, so whenever he would shout out "oh for f**k sake Jokanovic" me and my Dad took to calling out things like "Unlucky Jokie, good effort" and stuff like that just because the bloke got on our tits... Because of this I actually remember Jokanovic with an odd fondness.

Ha, that is an excellent story, I enjoyed that. "Jokie" has made such a non-impression on me, I can hardly remember him playing for us. The same can't be said for Mikel :-)

Ha, that is an excellent story, I enjoyed that. "Jokie" has made such a non-impression on me, I can hardly remember him playing for us. The same can't be said for Mikel :-)

 

We had woman sat behind us as well who had an annoying habit of screeching "get rid of iiiiiiit!" whenever the ball came into (or sometimes just near to) our penalty area. 

 

Me and my Dad (who to be fair are both easily irritated by this kind of thing) countered this by calling out stuff like "Nicely done lads, calming does it".

 

We didn't make any new friends whilst sat there but we both enjoyed ourselves. 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1e8fr5_mikel-the-big-interview_sport

 

He refers to his relationship with Kalou as "Tom and Jerry" haha

Edited March 3, 201412 yr by Amputechture

Persistent rumours in the last week or so of Mikel leaving in the summer with Inter Milan reportedly interested.

 

I read a fee of £12m was potentially going to be offered. 

Like him or not he isnt getting much game time. He is only being used to close up games in the last 10 to 15 minutes of the games. 12 million wouldnt be a bad price i guess. The only thing is he was suppose to be going last summer to Turkey but that never happened.

12 million would be a fantastic deal for us.

Anyone else thinking that Mikel might be leaving at the end of the season.

 

He's playing time has dropped to almost zero since the signing of Matic.

 

If he was to leave it would allow us to potentially bring in a better suited partner to Matic... I hear that lead Kroos is pretty good *ahem*

Anyone else thinking that Mikel might be leaving at the end of the season.

 

He's playing time has dropped to almost zero since the signing of Matic.

 

If he was to leave it would allow us to potentially bring in a better suited partner to Matic... I hear that lead Kroos is pretty good *ahem*

 

I don't see Mikel hanging around much longer. He is getting pretty much no game time now.

 

Kroos would be an excellent signing but i am still unsure if he really wants to leave Bayern.