We started with Chopper, and now we come to The Bison. Despite being less than 6' tall, Michael Essien was an absolute monster of a midfielder, belting into tackles, rampaging up the field and barging through anyone who got in his way. His technical skills were undoubtedly pretty terrific and one long range curling shot against Arsenal in 2010 still takes the breath away. Few players could take control of a match in the way Essien could and while you'd never see him doing twinkly stepovers or fancy tricks in the Cristiano Ronaldo vein, he was undoubtedly one of the most valuable players in the world in his prime. Being the type of player he was, there was certainly no shortage of disciplinary issues and one particularly nasty challenge on Liverpool's Dietmar Harmann caused an almighty outcry. Essien quickly apologised, proving himself a very honourable man even if his playing style frequently pushed physicality to its limits. Yellow cards have been a pretty regular occurance throughout his career, although not as frequent as might be expected: he was among the best players on the planet because he was able to make tough challenges and get them right most of the time. Unfortunately, a series of cruciate ligament injuries took the pace out of his legs and his decline thereafter was pretty quick, but today he's still plying his trade at the top level for AC Milan and will forever be remembered with fondness by Chelsea fans... if perhaps not all the opponents he left flat on their backs as he led the charge to victory.
28-year old English writer with a borderline obsessive passion for films, videogames, Chelsea FC, incomprehensible words and indefensible puns. Follow me on Twitter if you like infrequent outbursts of absolute drivel.
