“When the ball went past you see his face!” Mikel tells Newsweek in an exclusive interview, speaking from São Paulo, where Nigeria are preparing for their Olympic semi-final against Germany. The Chelsea midfielder is sure that Pogba will get him back for the jibe and is looking forward to playing against the Frenchman in the new Premier League season.
“Great talent, lovely guy on and off the pitch…I’m happy that he’s back in the Premier League,” says Mikel, 29. “[But] I don’t want him to play well for United obviously because I don’t want them to win the league, I want us to win the league!”
Nigeria’s participation in the Olympic football tournament means that Mikel only had one week of pre-season training with his Chelsea team-mates before going on international duty. But the midfielder says that the week he spent working withnew Chelsea coach Antonio Conte was enough to convince him that the Blues will drastically improve on their difficult season in 2015-16, when the club finished 11th, their worst ranking in 20 years.
“[Conte] wants 110 percent every single training [session], he works really, really hard. I think this season, we will be fit, that’s for sure,” says Mikel. “He’s come in and brought a different style that he wants the team to play.”
The Nigerian is aware that he will have to battle for his place in Chelsea’s starting line-up. The London club splashed around £32 million ($42 million) on former Leicester City midfielder N’Golo Kante in a department where they already have several top-class players, including Nemanja Matić and Cesc Fàbregas.
Mikel says it has been difficult to follow the team’s start to the Premier League season from South America—he was unable to watch Chelsea’s opening victory over West Ham on Monday due to training commitments with Nigeria. “I always want to be there to support the team and make sure I fight for every point for the team,” says Mikel. “It’s the first time I haven’t been with [Chelsea] from the start of the season, but I know that the guys are fit with the training we went through in pre-season.”
The 2016-17 season will also bring another reunion for Mikel—with former Chelsea boss José Mourinho, who is now also with Manchester United. The Portuguese brought Mikel to the English Premier League in 2006 following a protracted and confusing transfer dispute involving United and the Nigerian’s former club, Norway’s Lyn Oslo. Mourinho managed Mikel again when he returned to Chelsea in 2013 until the manager’s dismissal in December 2015.
Mikel struggled to make an impact during Mourinho’s second term and reportedly said that the Portuguese had damaged his confidence by freezing him out of Chelsea’s starting line-up. But the Nigerian tells Newsweek that he has only respect for his former coach and looks forward to meeting him again. “He’s a great coach, an amazing human being…I just think things didn’t work out for him in his latest days in his career at Chelsea,” says Mikel. “I have a very good relationship with him so I will never come out and say things that are not true about him.”
Newsweek
