SOCCER:FOR MICHAEL Essien, memories of the monotony persist. Back when the English summer was sun-drenched he had rarely deviated from a set daily routine. He would arrive at Chelsea's near deserted training centre in Cobham for 10am, then gain what little variety he could by mixing and matching between exercise bikes, cross trainers, treadmills, weights and lengths of the swimming pool. The work-out, prolonged and painful, ended at 5pm with another energy-sapping pigeon step taken on the road to recovery.
By early evening he would be back at home in front of the television to watch team-mates and compatriots participate in the World Cup finals, a stage that might have been his. The drudgery of life in rehabilitation might have left others numbed, but Essien is stronger than that. “John Mikel Obi would be in doing his work, and a couple of the reserve team players, but that was it, though it was not a problem for me,” he says. “I’m the kind of person who likes to be lonely. I got my head down and focused on getting fit. To be back playing now makes the hard work well worth it.”
There is a purring enthusiasm to the Ghanaian that suggests he is now intent upon making up for lost time. Essien has endured lengthy spells on the sidelines in the past two seasons. He ripped his anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee two seasons ago while playing for Ghana, damage that excluded him for more than five months and, therefore, virtually the entirety of Luiz Felipe Scolari’s tenure at the club. In January he wrecked the cartilage and meniscus in the same joint while training at the African Cup of Nations in Angola.
The loud click heard by all present signalled the end of his participation in a season that yielded the club’s first Premier League and FA Cup Double. He scheduled a 10-day break at the end of the season ahead of the anticipated hefty working summer and promptly succumbed to a nasty bout of tonsillitis that dragged on for a week. In that sorry context, his glee at a return to first-team football is utterly understandable.
The midfielder, along with Mikel, played in all five of the champions’ pre-season friendlies and West Bromwich Albion faced a familiar rampaging figure last Saturday in Chelsea’s 6-0 win. “It was great to be back,” says Essien. “There’s relief there, too. It was so frustrating to be back in that position, out of the team and in the treatment room, but these things happen. The knee is fine. There has been no reaction, either after training or after games.
“I suppose I knew what to expect. I’d been injured the previous year, and I’m a strong guy mentally. I can honestly say that winning the Premier League last season meant as much to me as it did in my first season at the club.”
Essien played 14 league games last season, and a meagre 11 the season before, but was still offered a contract extension this summer that should extend his stay at Stamford Bridge to a decade. Carlo Ancelotti will be rejoicing to have his midfield dynamo restored to the fold, with the 27-year-old offering him rare options. He was employed in a familiar position on the right of a narrow midfield three against West Brom, with licence to spring forward and unsettle nervous opponents. Yet he retains the ability to anchor that central trio – a role offered to Mikel last Saturday – and, unlike a more conventional Claude Makelele clone, can still boast that explosive thrust.
“People are saying I’m one of the new signings this year, and I am looking forward to playing more consistently after missing so much of the last two seasons,” says Essien. “This can be a big season. I don’t think I’ve still got things to show Carlo Ancelotti. He has seen me play a lot, even before he was our manager, and he knows what I can do.
“It is an exciting time. Some players have left but Ramires has come in, a player I haven’t seen much of but getting into the Brazilian team is not easy, so he must be good. I hope I can work well with him. It will be up to the manager where we all play. I’ve always enjoyed getting forward, pushing up-field to help us in our attacks, but I think you can still do that from a central position too.”
Ancelotti’s team were defeated by today’s opponents Wigan at the DW Stadium early last season and will be wary of enduring a repeat. “But that was last season, that is gone now,” adds Essien. Everything about this player is forward thinking.
