Mikel unsung hero in early season routs

Chelsea's £18.2 million capture of Ramires is most likely to displace Jon Mikel Obi from the team when studying the Chelsea midfield. The ever consistent Frank Lampard and returning Michael Essien are seemingly certainties for the majority of games, which leaves Mikel with a struggle for first team football. Some less attentive journalists have even dismissed Obi completely and claimed that the capture of Ramires means the end for the Nigerian. These reports are off course far from the mark as Mikel will by no means be starved of appearances. Nevertheless competition has increased, and Mikel becomes more of rotation player then a certain starter.

Mikel has been at the club since 2006, after his infamous signing from Lyn and has quickly clocked up over 150 appearances in 4 seasons, despite his tender age. Mikel has always been a target for criticism at the Bridge though and is often found as a scapegoat both with the Stamford Bridge faithful and with managers of the past. He was the 5/10 man in all of Sunday's papers all too regularly in his early career but The Nigerian came on leaps and bounds in last seasons double winning year, and has picked up the pace immediately in The Blues' impressive opening. He disappointingly missed out on The World Cup with injury, but started in the Community Shield and featured frequently throughout pre-season.

This brings us to the season curtain raiser at The Bridge against West Brom. Now, in a rout such as the one against the Baggies, those receiving the plaudits were the obvious candidates. Drogba praised for another hat-trick, Lampard and Malouda praised for their goals, Ashley praised for bombing forward time and time again. However there was a growing presence of praise for Mikel in discussions about the game. I sat there with a bit of disbelief from my seat when I heard groans quickly follow a misplaced Mikel pass. This untidiness signals a part of Mikel's reputation that he has forged in his early career for being a tad lazy and sloppy in his passing. However I couldn't remember another stray pass he had done at that point. I felt Mikel was excellent that day, and equally as important as the aformentioned players for the way he controlled the midfield. It was not just Mikel's passing that was no longer erratic, but it was his presence in front of the defence that gave them such an easy ride. Mikel marshals the midfield and continuously was seen to outmuscle the West Brom attackers and brush away the opponents attack with ease. It was a vintage display from Mikel and one that should have seen more credit, as hopefully a sign of greater things to come.

Picture Courtesy of The Guardian's excellent Chalkboard feature.

Now the picture above shows both Gerrard and Mikel's pass map from the season opener. It would be naive of course to suggest that this evidence is unquestionable because of the difficulty of opponent being so different. We are though looking at one of the great passers of the game, and the steering wheel in the Liverpool midfield, with responsibilty to drive the team on. Of Gerrard's 44 passes, 8 of them were unsuccessful, whereas Mikel recorded a much larger 72, of which just 5 were misplaced. There are a few things that I noted from this, obviously many of Gerrard's 'unsuccessful' passes came from wide positions but it shows that nobodies passing is perfect. Mikel's pass map is more self explanatory and it shows how commanding and important a presence he was in the Chelsea midfield against West Brom. The number of passes show how frequently he was involved in Chelsea's ball possession. Another thing of great importance to note is the frequency of passes into wide areas. The Chalkboard feature highlights how Mikel kickstarts many of the moves that start with Ashley Cole.

We move onto Chelsea's second successive 6-0 win, this time at the place that Chelsea were victim of an embarassing grounding back to earth last season as we met Wigan at the DW Stadium. Chelsea were given a hard time in the first half by the sheer pressing of the Latics. It was admittedly a difficult first half for the Blues, who were lucky to go in with the lead at the half time whistle. The second half began and Roberto Martinez would have gave messages of optimism. This is when Mikel once again came to the fore with an exceptional ball that perfectly found Anelka who brilliantly finished. This was his second assist in the most decisive or important goal of both games. Mikel teed it up to Malouda for Chelsea's first of the 10/11 season, while his pass put this game beyond doubt. He was immediately mobbed by everyone close to him, thus was the excellence of the assist, and wore a childish grin with it.

The pass map above once again shows Mikel's excellent passing success and again highlights the importance that he holds to distributing to Ashley Cole. There's much that could be repeated about the Nigerian's performance at Wigan that were similar to that of West Brom so I'll focus on the further positives. Mikel stood up to be counted in this game, his passing was decisive, his presence was commanding and relentless, whilst his running and attitude was admirable. His passing success was greater than that of Paul Scholes, the man already ordained as this season PFA Player of the Year by journalists and reporters alike. Mikel has stood out for me greater than anyone else thus far, and a continuation of this may see Ramires struggle to force his way into the starting eleven. Mikel hasn't quite fit the mould of 'solid but unspectacular' in his time so far, despite drawing comparisons to the great Makelele but on this form Mikel may come across both solid and spectacular, and what the heck, may even score a goal!