Pre-season tour: Chelsea finally drop Mikel

Sunset appears to have set for Chelsea's midfielder John Obi Mikel following the decision of the London giants to drop the Nigerian from their pre-season European playing tour.

The team left London Monday for Austria with Mikel conspicuously missing in the list of players who boarded the aircraft to Vienna.

BRAZIL, Campinas : Nigeria's midfielder John Obi Mikel takes part in a training session in Campinas, Sao Paulo, on June 18, 2014, during the 2014 FIFA Football World Cup. AFP PHOTO

According to chelsea.fc.com, the likes of new signings Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa and Filipe Luis were part of Jose Mourinho's 26-man squad, who will partake in the two-week European training camp.

Also on the train were Petr Cech, Matej Delac, Mitchell Beeney, Mark Schwarzer, Branislav Ivanovic, Oriol Romeu, Kurt Zouma, Andreas Christensen, John Terry, Gary Cahill, Nathan Ake, Cesar Azpilicueta, Marco van Ginkel, Nemanja Matic, Nathaniel Chalobah, Mohamed Salah,

Jeremie Boga, Lewis Baker, John Swift, Patrick Bamford, Fernando Torres,
Dominic Solanke and Isaiah Brown.

Chelsea kickoff their pre-season tour with a match against RZ Pellets tomorrow.

They later face NK Olimpija Ljubljana in Slovenia on Sunday, before matches against Vitesse Arnhem and Werder Bremen, in the Netherlands and Germany respectively.

It is believed that Mourinho decided to drop Mikel from his squad was caused by the player's poor performance at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Despite facing a bleak future at Chelsea, it was thought that Mikel would use the World Cup to raise his game and stake a claim to a starting shirt in Chelsea but the former Lyon of Oslo player failed woefully as the Eagles crashed out in the second round on the tournament, with Mikel laballed the biggest flop of the Nigerian side.