“They must not start next season” “Sell them now” – Job Mikel Obi tells Enzo Maresca to sell these 2 Chelsea players who are not good enough for Chelsea project
Having Job Obi Mikel launch a podcast has been enjoyable because he is eager to dive further into the current team than some analysts—especially previous Chelsea players—would.
He has been picking apart our center halves today, criticizing two of them for being unfit for Chelsea. He expressed his satisfaction that we had signed Tosin Adarabioyo because some of our other possibilities weren’t suitable at the time and might not be in the future:
“I don’t think Benoit Badiashile is the guy for Chelsea, no. [Axel] Disasi, no. They’re still young players, they will develop,” he said in quotes picked up by Caught Offside.
“We need proven, two top centre-backs who will come in there and stabilise that back four. We need that. We need two world-class centre-halves.”
A warning that players might take you by surprise
For a few reasons, we won’t be nearly as hard on this couple as Mikel has been.
Most crucially, neither has been a member of the club for very long, and in the time they have been, there has been a great deal of change and uncertainty. Particularly center backs must be evaluated in the context of the entire team, and Chelsea’s defense last season was subpar from the goalie to the striker. Don’t you think they would look better if one of them was dropped into an Arsenal or Man City squad that was playing exceptionally well?
Secondly, we’ve learned from the recent past not to write players off. Think about how many Chelsea fans felt about Rudiger after a year or even two years at the club. He was considered unreliable and many were convinced he would never cut it. Now he’s a star at Real Madrid and a key player in their Double win this season.
Our hopes aren’t high, but we’re certainly not ruling out this pair just yet.