‘Fantastic’ Chelsea man compared to club legend as Mikel makes captaincy prediction
John Obi Mikel has likened Moises Caicedo to Chelsea legend N’Golo Kante after his performance against West Ham on Saturday.
Caicedo was on top form for Chelsea at the London Stadium, chipping in with an assist for Nicolas Jackson in the 3-0 victory.
The Blues have started the campaign strongly and the Ecuadorian is improving every week after a shaky start at Stamford Bridge.
He had a calamitous debut for the club away to West Ham last August but exorcised his demons with a top showing over the weekend.
His performance impressed former Chelsea midfielder Mikel, who believes Caicedo is finally living up to the £100million the club paid to sign him from Brighton last summer and is even capable of replacing Reece James as club captain.
MORE ON CHELSEA FROM F365
👉 Premier League winners and losers: Maresca, Arsenal and Kelleher impress but West Ham, Howe, O’Neil struggle
👉 Chelsea offer football as entertainment and nothing else; is that okay?
Mikel compared the 22-year-old to Kante, who was one of the best players in the world during his time at Chelsea, winning the Champions League, Europa League and Premier League during his time in London.
“He was everywhere,” Mikel said on his podcast. “Of course, he didn’t start his Chelsea career really well and a few games into his Chelsea career, there were loads of mistakes.
“Everyone was thinking, ‘Why did we pay so much money for this guy?’ Now we can see those performances that he was performing at Brighton and stuff like that so, an absolutely fantastic player.
“Everywhere on Saturday. Not just breaking up play, trying to link up play as well, passing, everything.
“Now you can feel this is the Moises Caicedo that we all know and also when you watch him, when you look at him right now, you can see that there’s a bit of confidence there.
“There’s a bit of, ‘OK, now I’m playing for Chelsea Football Club, this is my team.’
“With the performances, with the way he behaves on the pitch, there is no sort of [ego]… Exactly!
“He’s absolutely fantastic, I watched him there, he was everywhere. It’s a bit like a Kante kind of performance.
“All credit to Moises and also for the manager to give him such confidence and to make sure that he believes in him.
“Now he’s paid off with the performances and this is the guy that I think will eventually go on to maybe, probably captain the team.”
👉 MORE: Chelsea’s last 50 signings ranked | 20 biggest deals of the summer | Premier League five-year net spend table
