Isn’t Anyone Else Worried About Essien?
We’ve been hearing over the last couple of days that Michael Essien will soon know whether or not he can play in the World Cup.
The Chelsea midfielder has said “The plan right now is to have a detailed meeting with the Ghana FA and with Chelsea as well in the next few days. We are organising that as we speak so everyone will be fully informed about the situation and the progress on a daily basis. We felt it was best to leave it until now so as not to disrupt Chelsea’s league and cup plans and also it is the best time for the Ghana FA as the team will be getting ready to meet up now.”
Essien hasn’t played since injuring knee ligaments on international duty for Ghana in the African Cup of Nations in January , although suggests “I have to keep working hard to be fit. Once I am fit I hope to feature in at least one trial match before the World Cup starts. I haven’t played since January so I will need games before the real thing starts. However even if I don’t get any trial games, as long I am declared fit by the medical team then I will be in South Africa for sure. At the moment I am carrying on with my rehabilitation programme. Chelsea have allowed me to carry on until the end of May at Cobham and my fitness will be assessed by the experts as the days go by. I feel a lot better than I did a few weeks ago so I am keeping my fingers crossed that all will be well.”
Very commendable that the 27 year old is so intent on getting back to fitness but I have a slight problem with it. You see, Essien last played for us in December, when he tore a hamstring against Apoel Nicosia. Not particularly bothered that he was unavailable to us through injury though, Ghana still insisted he turn up for international duty – which he duly did and after being thrown on for a game he looked decidedly dodgy for anyway, he broke down in the subsequent training session having done his ligaments.
Whilst initial reports were hopeful Essien would only be out for six weeks, his recovery has been slow and despite earlier optimism, he failed to make it back before the end of the season as hoped for us. So, bearing in mind he missed the last 5 months of our season after international duty – and not for the first time either, with the last injury he picked up for Ghana keeping him out for 6 months as well – I’d be a bit bloody reluctant to let the Ghanaian medical staff have any say on his fitness this time whatsoever.
Filed under: Current Players, Injuries, Rants, World Cup
Chelsea News 24/7
Hmm, I think my worry is bigger – along the lines of will he ever play again?
‘If’ passed fit by the Chelsea medical staff there is NOTHING that Chelsea can do to stop him playing in the WC finals. From a positive perspective, he ‘could’ come back to Chelsea for next season fitter and ready to hit the ground running! ‘If’ he gets injured again Chelsea will need to look at replacing him in the squad. He is a fabulous player for us but we won the double without him and he could be replaced. He HAS played for Ghana many times before and not been injured though and I dare say his International experience has made Michael a better player for it.
Essienn talked about having 4 operations in April. That usualy slows down recovery. What problems there were in hoping he’d recover without surgery were solved when they finally committed.
I,m a one team man, I hate any and all Chelsea players playing international games,nor am I that keen on them swanning off around the world to film adverts for corporations when they could be practising set pieces at Cobham.
Or defending them even hey Kev!
I,ll defend Chelsea player to the hilt, England, Brasil, Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana I could’nt care less about.Jose was totally right this week when he said the real world cup final is happening tomorrow night in Madrid.
Chelsea D, I must admit that it worries me, that he will jet off to South Africa.
Chelsea-Alan in the same way, that we couldn’t replace Makéle, there is no player out there who can replace Essien.