Chelsea midfielder, Mikel John Obi, has passed a jibe at Manchester United world record signing, Paul Pogba, back, saying he was ready to make the English Premier League miserable for the Frenchman.
Obi, currently on international duty as the captain of the Nigeria’s men Olympic football team, tweeted a video clip of himself dribbling Pogba during a match at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The tweet has since been retweeted 52,000 times and favourited 42,000 times.
“When the ball went past you see his face!” Mikel tells Newsweek in an exclusive interview in São Paulo.
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.
“I don’t want him (Pogba) 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 with new 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 per cent 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.
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