Lyon fans miss Essien most

Ghana international Michael Essien will not be forgotten anytime soon by supporters of French Ligue 1 side Olympique Lyonnais after being voted as the "Most Missed Player" at Stade Gerland.

Lyon's quality players in the last eight seasons of being crowned Ligue 1 champions, have been transferred for megabucks to some many European clubs.

Renowned French football news portal, maxifoot, conducted a poll and asked: "Lyon fans, which former player do you miss most?"

Of the 14,040 fans who responded, Essien, currently riding on a crest wave at English Premier League side Chelsea polled 69.2% (9,710 votes).

It was a landslide win and was followed by Real Madrid's Mahamadou Diarra who polled 9.7% of the votes (1,366 votes).

Florent Malouda also at Chelsea came third (7.4%, 1037 votes) and Juventus' Tiago was fourth (7.1%, 999 votes).

Barcelona's French left-back Eric Abidal was last in the poll.

Essien played at Lyon for two seasons (2003-2005) where he won two French Ligue title and was voted the 2005 Player of the Year by France's National Union of Professional Footballers.

In August 2005, Chelsea offered 24.4 million pounds, an African record fee, for the player in one of the longest running transfer sagas in English Football history.