{"id":112696,"date":"2023-10-20T15:09:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/10\/20\/michael-essien-picks-paul-scholes-as-the-tough-player-he-ever\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:09:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:09:07","slug":"michael-essien-picks-paul-scholes-as-the-tough-player-he-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/10\/20\/michael-essien-picks-paul-scholes-as-the-tough-player-he-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Essien picks Paul Scholes as the tough player he ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"485\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/download-8-696x485.png\"   alt=\"\" title=\"download\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Michael Essien has named ex-Manchester United midfielder,\u00a0Paul Scholes as the toughest player he has ever played against during his playing career.<\/p>\n<p>Essien faced Scholes during his day at Olympique Lyon in a Champions League game before joining\u00a0Chelsea in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>The former Ghana midfielder played with some of the world\u2019s best players during his time in Europe but says Scholes stands out as the best player he competed against.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have faced a lot of good players in my career. It\u2019s difficult to tell. I face the likes of Xavi, [Andres] Iniesta and a lot\u2026Steven Gerrard but I always say Paul Scholes is one of the players that was quite tough\u201d he said in an interview with Goal.<\/p>\n<p>Despite playing alongside some of the world\u2019s talented players at Lyon, Chelsea, Real Madrid and AC Milan, Essien also settled on Frank Lampard as the best player he played with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody is my teammate. I love all my teammates. It\u2019s hard to choose but I would go for Frank Lampard. Being a midfielder that scores a lot of goals. To keep doing it every season is quite amazing. People know my connection with Jose Mourinho so yeah [he\u2019s the best manager I have had]\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Essien is currently part of the technical team at Danish side FC Nordsjaelland.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"Ve4uW8h33gs\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IMPROVING FALLEN EDUCATED STANDARD: Buem-Jasikan municipal assembly motivates teachers to work hard\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ve4uW8h33gs?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Essien has named ex-Manchester United midfielder,\u00a0Paul Scholes as the toughest player he has ever played against during his playing career. Essien faced Scholes during his day at Olympique Lyon in a Champions League game before joining\u00a0Chelsea in 2005. The former Ghana midfielder played with some of the world\u2019s best players during his time in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael Essien picks Paul Scholes as the tough player he ever - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/10\/20\/michael-essien-picks-paul-scholes-as-the-tough-player-he-ever\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Essien picks Paul Scholes as the tough player he ever - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Michael Essien has named ex-Manchester United midfielder,\u00a0Paul Scholes as the toughest player he has ever played against during his playing career. Essien faced Scholes during his day at Olympique Lyon in a Champions League game before joining\u00a0Chelsea in 2005. 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