{"id":51710,"date":"2021-10-13T16:55:58","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T15:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea"},"modified":"2021-10-13T17:30:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T16:30:16","slug":"mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Obi names player who really helped him at Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Nigeria<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Chelsea hero, John Mikel Obi, has named former teammate, Michael Essien, as the player who helped him during his time at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n

Mikel explained that Essien always told him he was a good player and reminded him to bring the ball down, control and pass.<\/p>\n

According to him, the former Ghanaian international made him have a lot of confidence in the game.<\/p>\n

Mikel joined Chelsea in 2006, and didn\u2019t leave the Blues until 2017.<\/p>\n

The former Super Eagles captain made a total of 372 appearances for Chelsea in a career that saw him lift the Premier League trophy twice as well as the UEFA Champions League once in 2011\/12.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly, I was sharing a dressing room with all these players I had watched on television back in Africa,\u201d Mikel told The Athletic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was sitting next to Lassana Diarra. I would be there thinking, \u2018Oh my God, it\u2019s Didier Drogba. It\u2019s Frank Lampard. It\u2019s John Terry\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael Essien [who joined Chelsea from Lyon in the summer of 2005] really helped me. Michael always told me I was a good player and just reminded me to bring the ball down, control and pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you need to dribble, dribble. If you don\u2019t need to, just pass. You are strong. You are fast, too. If you can, just push the ball past and run, run, run because they cannot catch you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the guy who really helped me and made me have a lot of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Champions League: Michael Essien predicts club to win trophy in 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Nigeria. Chelsea hero, John Mikel Obi, has named former teammate, Michael Essien, as the player who helped him during his time at Stamford Bridge. Mikel explained that Essien always told him he was a good player and reminded him to bring the ball down, control and pass. According to him, the former Ghanaian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":51709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,18,26],"tags":[1570,2140,485,3549,254],"class_list":["post-51710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-chelsea","tag-mikel-obi","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"\nMikel Obi names player who really helped him at Chelsea - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chelsea hero, John Mikel Obi, has named former teammate, Michael Essien, as the player who helped him during his time at ...\" \/>\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.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mikel Obi names player who really helped him at Chelsea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chelsea hero, John Mikel Obi, has named former teammate, Michael Essien, as the player who helped him during his time at ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-13T15:55:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-13T16:30:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/10\/img-616709776c1bb.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mikel Obi names player who really helped him at Chelsea\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-13T15:55:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-13T16:30:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea\"},\"wordCount\":269,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/10\/img-616709776c1bb.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"chelsea\",\"Mikel Obi\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-names-player-who-really-helped-him-at-chelsea\",\"name\":\"Mikel Obi names player who really helped him at Chelsea - 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