Who is the best as a player ?

You decide.

what kind of question is that. just look at their performances for club and country and u have ur answer.

al-qaeda:

what kind of question is that. just look at their performances for club and country and u have your answer.

lmaoooo

@Poster
Hope u r not a sympathiser of mikel obi cos that's such a ridiculous comparism?

skfa1:

Who is the best as a player ?

You decide.

May be you want to change your question to "who is better" first you can not have a best from just two options.

No doubt Essien is a stronger brand from club and country pedigree. He is acknowledged as one of the best DMs. His core strengths are his ability to support the attack,long range shots and  his ability to play multiple roles (utility player). I must quickly add that because of the name he has built over time, he is rarely criticsed  even when he plays poorly

Mikel on the other hand has better positional discipline, is a better man-marker and passes the ball better. His weakness is poor shooting and unwillingness to take some risks and support the attack.

We have to note however that Essien has reached about the peak while Mikel still has big room for improvements.

@poster,
y are u deceiving ur self, Me and u know the answer

@post : me thinks you are high on something.

May be you want to change you question to "who is better" first you can not have a best from just two options.

No doubt Essien is a stronger brand from club and country pedigree. He is acknowledges as one of the best DMs. His core strengths are his ability to support the attack,long range shots and his ability to play multiple roles (utility player). I must quickly add that because of the name he has built over time, he is rarely criticsed even when he plays poorly

Mikel on the other hand has better positional discipline, is a better man-marker and passes the ball better. His weakness is poor shooting and unwillingness to take some risks and support the attack.

We have to note however that Essien has reached about the peak while Mikel still has big room for improvements.

@na_so ,
when truths are said, they are obvious and has nothing to do with sympathy. what u wrote above is simply the truth and if what u wrote is criticism, it is a constructive one.
i like your sense of reasoning and that is how normal people write with simplicity of facts and figures.
pls keep that up.

na_so:

May be you want to change you question to "who is better" first you can not have a best from just two options.

No doubt Essien is a stronger brand from club and country pedigree. He is acknowledges as one of the best DMs. His core strengths are his ability to support the attack,long range shots and his ability to play multiple roles (utility player). I must quickly add that because of the name he has built over time, he is rarely criticsed even when he plays poorly

Mikel on the other hand has better positional discipline, is a better man-marker and passes the ball better. His weakness is poor shooting and unwillingness to take some risks and support the attack.

We have to note however that Essien has reached about the peak while Mikel still has big room for improvements.

The only thing i will give Mikel is he huffs and puffs for nothing but hey, as you rightly said age is on his side so he can still learn. As for him being the better passer of the ball, i bet to differ. The guy always passes sideways. Watch Chelsea matches and you'll realize which of them has accurate piercing passes. Essien always find the killer passes.

As for the 'positional discipline and man marking' thing, it all depends on the topposition. Essien singlehandedly destroyed Gerrard(Liverpool) when they met in UCL. He marked and terrorized Gerrard out of the game completely. If you want to shackle someone, put Essien on him and the job is done. He will even follow that person to the loo(washroom)! Lol . Essien tends to bomb forward when the opposition isn't much of an opposition and when he's told to stay put, he does that exceptionally well as well.

But hey, Mikel is relatively young so he'll pick up but for now, let him learn from the master

MIKEL is good but ESSIEN is better!

Africason:

The only thing i will give Mikel is he huffs and puffs for nothing but hey, as you rightly said age is on his side so he can still learn. As for him being the better passer of the ball, i bet to differ. The guy always passes sideways. Watch Chelsea matches and you'll realize which of them has accurate piercing passes. Essien always find the killer passes.

I am sincerely not aware of killer passes from Essien may be you need to give examples.

As for mikel he passes sideways and backwards many times , however when he decides to pass the ball forward his passes are world class. The problem is , he does it so effortlessly that he goes unnoticed.
I give you two examples

1. Arsenal VS chelsea at emirate last season, the goal scored by ashley cole was as a result killer long range pass from mikel but nobody acknowledged it , if it was a lampard or ballack that gave the pass there would have been applause everywhere.

2. Chelsea VS cLUJ which chelsea needed to win to stay in the CL. When it was 1-1 Mikel gave a clean killer pass to Joe cole which Drogba converted to get the second goal. Nobody acknowledged Mikel.

Africason:

As for the 'positional discipline and man marking' thing, it all depends on the topposition. Essien singlehandedly destroyed Gerrard(Liverpool) when they met in UCL. He marked and terrorized Gerrard out of the game completely. If you want to shackle someone, put Essien on him and the job is done. He will even follow that person to the loo(washroom)! Lol . Essien tends to bomb forward when the opposition isn't much of an opposition and when he's told to stay put, he does that exceptionally well as well.

Yes Essien did well against Gerrard in the first leg, he however was unable to cope against Alonso and Benayoun in the second leg. If mikel put up such a showing,you can be sure he would have been scored much lower. Mikel too has squared up against Gerrard on many occassions and has not done badly.Mikel was put against Del peiro and he did very well. After the Chelsea Vs Barcelona match in camp nou, foreign commentators gave much of the credit of the 0-0 feat to the Mikel and Essien for making it impossible for Barca to create anything from the middle. Mikel and peter czech got joint highest scores on chelsea side.

Essien is an excellent player but i must confess that Mikel's contributions (at least in chelsea) go unnoticed most times.

There is no basis for comparision, Essien is better than Mikel even though he is older than Mikel. Let's see if Mikel will improve on his all-round game and not just the "control and pass" he normally plays.

Hmm.
Man must learn that:
You can never compare DEATH with SLEEP.
You can not compare FILE with FALI(a muslim name)
You can not compare Fish pond with OCEAN
You cannot compare bathroom shower with RAIN.
While all these seems same to shallow-minded folks,
They are as far from each other as they seems close.
Mikel is FAIR,
ESSIEN is VERY GOOD,
THE GOODER AND GOODEST ARE NOT YET BORN.

Essien is better.Mikel is already playing the best football of his career and not at Essien's level.
Most athlete get to the top of their game between 23yrs-26yrs and I strogly believe Mikel is in that range already.

@ poster
u obviously know nothing about football. u should be banned from watchin football, sorry let me reduce ur punishment, u should be restricted to watching ghanian league on black and white tv.

comparing Ajegunle and VGC because both of them are in Lagos.

Na so,
i will suggest you stop wasting ur time with destiny killers here.
mikel passing sideways, backways, frontways or whatever, as long as such world class coaches and the man signing his weekly checks are not complaining, what has empty brains got to do with that.
nigeria has no coach yet under bridge traders here assume that role just to run great players down here on nairaland.
every nigerian knows everything yet we have the worst country to think of.

i like MIKEL n i believe he will get better

I prefer him to Essien anyday

You nigerians fit kill person sha  . Wetin I no go see for NL? First it was Obagoal v Shrek,now this. Y'all opening this kind of threads are just being patroitic cuz you and I know quite well there is only one winner here.

The better one is playing, while the other one is happy to collect his salary every week!

The better one is playing, while the other one is happy to collect his salary every week!

@GTay,
as a human being, an african and a nigerian in particular, which position would you prefer?
i wish to remind you that chelsea as a team has over 40 players and in the field of play, a coach is only allowed to select 11 players at the same time.
at his age, mikel has achieved more than most of us here and even our fathers yet many made in nigeria idiots see him as a failure.
playing or not playing, good or bad, nigerians must always learn to live with the realities of life that mikel is not only a star but also a supper star.
if a nigerian has the capacity to context among the best midfielders in the world, that nigerian deserves our praise and not our dark hearted criticisms.

That is a stupid question . Even a blind man knows that Michael Essien is better than than that good for nothing Mikel Obi .

Essien miles ahead