Michael Essien's former team-mates at Lyon have a message for his new Chelsea colleagues - do not forget your shinpads. The 22-year-old Ghanaian, who last week became the Blues' record signing at £24.4million, built up a reputation in France for being polite, well mannered, discreet and respectful. But that's off the field. On it, he is a man transformed, a bit like the Incredible Hulk.
Opponents don't want to make him angry. Renowned for his fierce tackling and all-action displays, Essien does not let up in practice games, either. Towards the end of last season, with Lyon already assured of their fourth straight French league title, Essien was the only player still haring around in training, snapping at ankles and flying into challenges. His team-mates knew Essien too well to try to dampen his enthusiasm. As France winger Sidney Govou says: 'The best thing to do was make sure you were on Mike's team.'
Essien has not always been a hardman. As a youngster, playing football on the streets of his quarter in the Ghanaian capital Accra, he would regularly be bowled over by the bigger boys, while dreaming of following in the footsteps of local heroes Abedi Pele and Tony Yeboah. In those days, Essien would cry and limp home to his mother, Aba. His four older sisters would also tend to him, in the absence of his father James, a professional footballer who walked out on the family.
Although he still phones home every day to speak to his mother, Essien does not get knocked down so easily these days. His muscular performances for Lyon over the past two seasons and in particular a training ground exploit in a truck-pulling-style exercise, earned him the nickname Bison. Yves Colleu, right-hand man to manager Paul Le Guen for three seasons at Lyon until Le Guen quit in May, told me that Essien is 'the prototype modern player, football's equivalent of Jonah Lomu'. And while it would be a surprise to see him pitted against Arsenal in today's London derby, just hours after finally closing the saga of his on-off transfer, there is no doubt that Essien is ready for the hurly-burly of the Premiership.
Essien's showing for Lyon last season earned him the players' player of the year award. The most moving part of the televised ceremony was when Essien was asked to watch on the big screen behind him a special report from Accra. After tracing Essien's early days, the film concluded with a message from his mother. 'Michael's a good boy and we're all so very proud of him and of his achievements,' she said in close-up while her son looked on, tears welling in his eyes. 'He always calls home and we talk about everything, and I do my best to help him keep his head on his shoulders and his feet on the ground. But he's not the sort to get carried away, anyway.'
Essien might have been a Manchester United player today but for his mother. Spotted playing for Ghana in the under-17 world championship, Essien was invited to take part in a United trial. Faced with work permit problems, Sir Alex Ferguson suggested a stint at their feeder club in Antwerp. Aba did not like the idea. She had heard tales of Belgian clubs organising the traffic of African players. Essien's United days were thus limited. He came away with memories of watching videos of Eric Cantona, a childhood hero, on the MUFC museum TV and an autograph of David Beckham that would later be stolen in Ghana.
Essien's agent Fabien Piveteau (a former goalkeeper who played for, among others, Monaco against Leeds in a 1995 Uefa Cup match remembered for a Yeboah hat-trick and Thierry Henry's first European appearance) persuaded Bastia to look at him. Coach Frederic Antonetti says that he knew after a few minutes he had a special player on his hands.
Although only 17, Essien was thrust straight into the first team. Asked to play in various positions from centre-back to right-back and all over the midfield, Essien just got on with his task. Although not speaking the language - Essien's mother tongue is English - he made rapid progress. The Corsican club knew that they would not be able to hold on to him for long, but when he joined Lyon two years ago, rejecting overtures from Everton, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, Bastia banked their biggest ever transfer fee, some £7million.
The switch to Lyon, just as with his protracted move to Chelsea, showed that Essien knows what he wants and is smart enough to get it. PSG were offering more money, but Essien sensed that Lyon were best for him. Two league winner's medals proved him right. He showed his wiles, too, at last year's World Cup qualifier at home to Congo. With the crowd turning nasty and invading the pitch after a disappointing 0-0 draw, Essien swiftly employed a soldier to help him off the field and out of the ground.
Since then, Ghana's fortunes have taken an upturn. After Essien scored the second goal in a 2-0 victory over South Africa in June, the Ghanaians are two wins away from reaching their first World Cup finals. They are at home to their group's bottom team, Uganda, next month before finishing away to Cape Verde Islands in October.
The question, then, is where Essien will play for Chelsea. For Essien will play. Jose Mourinho would not have been prepared to spend so much money - even Chelsea money, which clearly has a different value to most - on a player he did not intend to be a key figure. And Essien is a Mourinho-style player. Hungry for success, still on the upward curve and not one to make waves. Colleu spoke of Essien's 'exemplary attitude and behaviour'. Antonetti admired his versatility and calls Essien 'a manager's dream'.
Essien has played in every position bar goalkeeper for Bastia and Lyon over the past five seasons. He is best, though, in central midfield, the position he prefers. Mourinho is unlikely to want to change the 4-3-3 system that has brought Chelsea such success, especially now he has four players - Damien Duff, Arjen Robben, Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips - capable of filling the wide berths either side of the lone striker, Didier Drogba or Hernan Crespo. Essien's arrival will, then, allow Mourinho to solve one of the few problems he has to deal with, namely who to play alongside Claude Makelele and Frank Lampard in midfield. The manager tinkered last season.
At times it was Alexei Smertin, at others Tiago, Cole, Scott Parker, Jiri Jarosik or Geremi. Eidur Gudjohnsen filled the role against Arsenal in the Community Shield, and again away to Wigan. Probably not for much longer.
Essien's presence alongside Lampard, with Makelele staying deep to do the excellent tidying-up job he does in front of the back four, will provide Chelsea with more drive, more impact and better balance. Essien, like Lampard, is a box-to-box player. To get an idea of what he can bring to Chelsea's formidable line-up, imagine a cross between Makelele and Patrick Vieira, Essien's two favourite players. And he scores goals, too. Decent in the air despite being only 5ft 10in and with a kick like a mule, Essien netted five times in 10 Champions League games last season, matching Drogba's total and bettering Lampard's European best of four.
In Essien, Ghana and Chelsea have an indefatigable runner. Described by Lyon team-mates as a physical 'monster', he says that he never feels exhausted at the end of a game, even when playing in the midfield engine room. Forced to play at centre-back for a while last season because of injuries, Essien complained that he was not allowed to move forward from defence. At the end of games he felt like going for a run, he said, so little energy did he consume. After Lyon thrashed Werder Bremen 7-2, including an Essien double, in last season's Champions League, local paper Le Progres ran the headline 'Robocop Essien'.
Lyon's director of football, former France forward Bernard Lacombe, had a more down-to-earth comparison to offer. 'Few youngsters have his potential,' Lacombe said. 'He reminds me of Jean Tigana, a really classy player who doesn't seem to be affected by the physical effort.' Perhaps it is no surprise that Essien has energy to spare. He lists sleeping among his hobbies and claims to snooze up to 13 hours a day.
This calm, almost introverted man admits to one weakness. He cannot dance, he says. He has another chink in his armour, though, that he will have to attend to if he is to succeed in English football. The on-field Essien has a temper.
Although he received fewer bookings than usual last season after Le Guen told him to clean up his act, he did lose the plot against Monaco and was sent off for a vicious challenge on Mohammed Kallon. Opposing players beware. Chelsea players, too. It is time to face Essien in training. Lyon captain Claudio Cacapa has some words of warning: 'It's impossible to beat Michael, you can't get past him. He frightens everybody.'
Michael Essien's former team-mates at Lyon have a message for his new Chelsea colleagues - do not forget your shinpads. The 22-year-old Ghanaian, who last week became the Blues' record signing at £24.4million, built up a reputation in France for being polite, well mannered, discreet and respectful. But that's off the field. On it, he is a man transformed, a bit like the Incredible Hulk.
Opponents don't want to make him angry. Renowned for his fierce tackling and all-action displays, Essien does not let up in practice games, either. Towards the end of last season, with Lyon already assured of their fourth straight French league title, Essien was the only player still haring around in training, snapping at ankles and flying into challenges. His team-mates knew Essien too well to try to dampen his enthusiasm. As France winger Sidney Govou says: 'The best thing to do was make sure you were on Mike's team.'
Essien has not always been a hardman. As a youngster, playing football on the streets of his quarter in the Ghanaian capital Accra, he would regularly be bowled over by the bigger boys, while dreaming of following in the footsteps of local heroes Abedi Pele and Tony Yeboah. In those days, Essien would cry and limp home to his mother, Aba. His four older sisters would also tend to him, in the absence of his father James, a professional footballer who walked out on the family.
Although he still phones home every day to speak to his mother, Essien does not get knocked down so easily these days. His muscular performances for Lyon over the past two seasons and in particular a training ground exploit in a truck-pulling-style exercise, earned him the nickname Bison. Yves Colleu, right-hand man to manager Paul Le Guen for three seasons at Lyon until Le Guen quit in May, told me that Essien is 'the prototype modern player, football's equivalent of Jonah Lomu'. And while it would be a surprise to see him pitted against Arsenal in today's London derby, just hours after finally closing the saga of his on-off transfer, there is no doubt that Essien is ready for the hurly-burly of the Premiership.
Essien's showing for Lyon last season earned him the players' player of the year award. The most moving part of the televised ceremony was when Essien was asked to watch on the big screen behind him a special report from Accra. After tracing Essien's early days, the film concluded with a message from his mother. 'Michael's a good boy and we're all so very proud of him and of his achievements,' she said in close-up while her son looked on, tears welling in his eyes. 'He always calls home and we talk about everything, and I do my best to help him keep his head on his shoulders and his feet on the ground. But he's not the sort to get carried away, anyway.'
Essien might have been a Manchester United player today but for his mother. Spotted playing for Ghana in the under-17 world championship, Essien was invited to take part in a United trial. Faced with work permit problems, Sir Alex Ferguson suggested a stint at their feeder club in Antwerp. Aba did not like the idea. She had heard tales of Belgian clubs organising the traffic of African players. Essien's United days were thus limited. He came away with memories of watching videos of Eric Cantona, a childhood hero, on the MUFC museum TV and an autograph of David Beckham that would later be stolen in Ghana.
Essien's agent Fabien Piveteau (a former goalkeeper who played for, among others, Monaco against Leeds in a 1995 Uefa Cup match remembered for a Yeboah hat-trick and Thierry Henry's first European appearance) persuaded Bastia to look at him. Coach Frederic Antonetti says that he knew after a few minutes he had a special player on his hands.
Although only 17, Essien was thrust straight into the first team. Asked to play in various positions from centre-back to right-back and all over the midfield, Essien just got on with his task. Although not speaking the language - Essien's mother tongue is English - he made rapid progress. The Corsican club knew that they would not be able to hold on to him for long, but when he joined Lyon two years ago, rejecting overtures from Everton, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, Bastia banked their biggest ever transfer fee, some £7million.
The switch to Lyon, just as with his protracted move to Chelsea, showed that Essien knows what he wants and is smart enough to get it. PSG were offering more money, but Essien sensed that Lyon were best for him. Two league winner's medals proved him right. He showed his wiles, too, at last year's World Cup qualifier at home to Congo. With the crowd turning nasty and invading the pitch after a disappointing 0-0 draw, Essien swiftly employed a soldier to help him off the field and out of the ground.
Since then, Ghana's fortunes have taken an upturn. After Essien scored the second goal in a 2-0 victory over South Africa in June, the Ghanaians are two wins away from reaching their first World Cup finals. They are at home to their group's bottom team, Uganda, next month before finishing away to Cape Verde Islands in October.
The question, then, is where Essien will play for Chelsea. For Essien will play. Jose Mourinho would not have been prepared to spend so much money - even Chelsea money, which clearly has a different value to most - on a player he did not intend to be a key figure. And Essien is a Mourinho-style player. Hungry for success, still on the upward curve and not one to make waves. Colleu spoke of Essien's 'exemplary attitude and behaviour'. Antonetti admired his versatility and calls Essien 'a manager's dream'.
Essien has played in every position bar goalkeeper for Bastia and Lyon over the past five seasons. He is best, though, in central midfield, the position he prefers. Mourinho is unlikely to want to change the 4-3-3 system that has brought Chelsea such success, especially now he has four players - Damien Duff, Arjen Robben, Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips - capable of filling the wide berths either side of the lone striker, Didier Drogba or Hernan Crespo. Essien's arrival will, then, allow Mourinho to solve one of the few problems he has to deal with, namely who to play alongside Claude Makelele and Frank Lampard in midfield. The manager tinkered last season.
At times it was Alexei Smertin, at others Tiago, Cole, Scott Parker, Jiri Jarosik or Geremi. Eidur Gudjohnsen filled the role against Arsenal in the Community Shield, and again away to Wigan. Probably not for much longer.
Essien's presence alongside Lampard, with Makelele staying deep to do the excellent tidying-up job he does in front of the back four, will provide Chelsea with more drive, more impact and better balance. Essien, like Lampard, is a box-to-box player. To get an idea of what he can bring to Chelsea's formidable line-up, imagine a cross between Makelele and Patrick Vieira, Essien's two favourite players. And he scores goals, too. Decent in the air despite being only 5ft 10in and with a kick like a mule, Essien netted five times in 10 Champions League games last season, matching Drogba's total and bettering Lampard's European best of four.
In Essien, Ghana and Chelsea have an indefatigable runner. Described by Lyon team-mates as a physical 'monster', he says that he never feels exhausted at the end of a game, even when playing in the midfield engine room. Forced to play at centre-back for a while last season because of injuries, Essien complained that he was not allowed to move forward from defence. At the end of games he felt like going for a run, he said, so little energy did he consume. After Lyon thrashed Werder Bremen 7-2, including an Essien double, in last season's Champions League, local paper Le Progres ran the headline 'Robocop Essien'.
Lyon's director of football, former France forward Bernard Lacombe, had a more down-to-earth comparison to offer. 'Few youngsters have his potential,' Lacombe said. 'He reminds me of Jean Tigana, a really classy player who doesn't seem to be affected by the physical effort.' Perhaps it is no surprise that Essien has energy to spare. He lists sleeping among his hobbies and claims to snooze up to 13 hours a day.
This calm, almost introverted man admits to one weakness. He cannot dance, he says. He has another chink in his armour, though, that he will have to attend to if he is to succeed in English football. The on-field Essien has a temper.
Although he received fewer bookings than usual last season after Le Guen told him to clean up his act, he did lose the plot against Monaco and was sent off for a vicious challenge on Mohammed Kallon. Opposing players beware. Chelsea players, too. It is time to face Essien in training. Lyon captain Claudio Cacapa has some words of warning: 'It's impossible to beat Michael, you can't get past him. He frightens everybody.'