What happened to Michael Essien? The Engine. The Bison. The Rock. I used to think that Michael Essien would never go out of form. He can have his bad days but I thought he\u2019d never go out of form. Even if the entire team is not playing well, you can count on one player giving his best \u2013 it was Michael Essien.
\nOf late, he has been wayward, lacking focus and concentration and he\u2019s been like that consistently and by his high standards, you can declare that he\u2019s out of form.
\nGenerally, when Essien has the ball, you can be dead sure that he\u2019s not going to give it away. Even if there are two or three players on Essien, you can pretty much say this with confidence that there would be only two possibilities \u2013 he\u2019d send the ball to safety or he\u2019d win a free kick. You can be absolutely sure that only one of these two things will happen.
\nIn the recent days, I\u2019ve seen Essien lose the ball. It\u2019s a very unusual sight. It\u2019s like seeing a Petr Cech howler. He doesn\u2019t do that. It\u2019s rare. He is so good that it\u2019s so rare. Michael Essien is similar. He doesn\u2019t do the wrong thing. He is very intelligent as a player, knows his role very well, understand the game situation and contributes accordingly.
\nOf late, he\u2019s not been doing well. I wonder why. I don\u2019t want to straightaway put the blame on Essien. It could be that his role is changing slightly in the team. These are probably the things that we won\u2019t know watching it from the stands or on TV.
\nIt could be that Carlo is telling him to try some new things, try to change the way he\u2019s playing or try to bring more flair to his game or something like that. It is possible that when someone\u2019s undergoing a change or trying to transform themselves, these things would happen and there\u2019d be such a phase.
\nThe bottomline from the Chelsea point of view is that every player contributes to win. It\u2019s not just enough to have the intent, there should be the effort and subsequently the outcome to make all this worthwhile. Anyone who\u2019s picked to play should contribute their bit for a Chelsea win.
\nAt any point of time, when we have a defender or a midfielder being out of form, we absolutely need to action on the situation. See I have very very high regards for Essien. It\u2019s not my love for Josh McEachran that makes me say these things about Essien. Regular folks know how highly I rate Essien.
\nIt\u2019s just that I feel that Essien is not in the right frame of mind for some reason \u2013 may it\u2019s something that\u2019s happening in his personal life, we don\u2019t know.
\nPurely based on the output on the pitch, I think Essien should be benched. I\u2019ve been convinced about this for many weeks now but I now thought this is now big enough to write a post about it. Michael Essien has this kind of rigidity about his game which suits very well when you have tactics built around the individual skills and abilities. Jose Mourinho was a master at this.
\nJust give him any team and some time. He can get the best from the team and that makes the whole more than the sum of its parts. Carlo\u2019s style is different. He doesn\u2019t go by individual abilities. He has a philosophy with playing football and the players will need to fit into that. Essien as a defensive midfielder might. Essien as an attacking midfielder may not.
\nEssien is not in the Lampard mould. You don\u2019t see Essien making defence splitting passes (not any throughpasses), you don\u2019t seem making clever one-twos, you don\u2019t see him slipping a cheeky little chip over the defence, he may not have the pace or skill to beat men and he\u2019s never been a \u2018great\u2019 passer of the ball.
\nThose are not part of his game. Hence, in Carlo\u2019s world, he\u2019s more suited for defensive midfield that central or attacking midfield. His strengths are his ability to hold possession, to win free kicks and to negotiate challenges with power and strength.
\nIf you notice, his pass completion ratio has come down. In recent times, most of his unsuccessful passes were long passes or passes of more than, say 15 yards.
\nHe was never the man for long passes. Yes, he can change directions but not the long forward passes. Suddenly there is an increase in his attempt to pass long. This is where I wonder if his role or the expectations on him are changing. As a defensive midfielder, you only need to push the ball to safety.
\nMany times, when he has the ball, you can see that he is not trying to just push the ball to safety but trying to do something in attack, even though he is under pressure.
\nTo keep the ball in attack despite tremendous pressure is not very easy and I suspect that he\u2019s trying to do that, which is different from his \u2018keep the ball, pass the ball to 5 yards and make runs when off the ball\u2019.
\nAs you go up the pitch you\u2019re known by your positives. As a striker, how many goals you score than how many you missed. As a forward or an attacking midfielder, how many assists you made or how many chances you created. As get go back in the pitch, you\u2019re known by your negatives.
\nTell what you didn\u2019t do or what you did badly. Defenders and midfielders are known by their mistakes or gaffes rather than the number of tackles and interceptions they make. One mistake can undo an hour\u2019s good work.
\nEssien has started making mistakes. At his role, every mistake of his makes the opposition grow in confidence. The sight of Essien being muscled and robbed off the ball is just unbearable. He needs a break \u2013 for his own good.
\nNow\u2019s the time we seem to have some really good youngsters knocking on the doors. Surely, this would create a healthy competition for places. And dropping senior players because of poor form will send out the right kind of messages to the young players. They\u2019d know that selection is based on merit and not just age and experience. They\u2019d know that they have a chance.
\nHe can\u2019t continue with 5\/10 and 6\/10 performances. What\u2019s worse is there are players in better form sitting in the bench. Without blinking an eye, I\u2019d drop Essien to the bench, allow him to recoup and come back as the bison, engine and rock so we say \u2018Now, this is the Essien I know\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What happened to Michael Essien? The Engine. The Bison. The Rock. I used to think that Michael Essien would never go out of form. He can have his bad days but I thought he\u2019d never go out of form. Even if the entire team is not playing well, you can count on one player giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n