regarding essien's low playing time this season..mou obivously has no plans for him, they've got loads of other players that can play cdms which i suppose mourinho trusts more so thats why he doesnt play at all..but looking at 12/13 season at real madrid:
Michael Essien was part of the club's lineup 28 times. He was 19 times in the starting team, got substituted in 2 time(s) and stayed on the bench 7 time(s).
12 times played a cdm, 5 times as rb and twice as lb. thats for la liga..as for ucl:
Michael Essien was part of the club's lineup 8 times. He was 6 times in the starting team, got substituted in 1 time(s) and stayed on the bench 1 time(s).
played against borussia 3 times, twice against galatasaray, and once against man utd, ajax and man city. 3 appearances as rb, one as lb, one as cm and two as cdm.
copa del rey:
Michael Essien was part of the club's lineup 7 times. He was 6 times in the starting team, got substituted in 1 time(s).
so he got a total of 2689 playing minutes, scored 2 goals, got one assist, 7 yellow cards and made a total of 35 appearances.
and he might be injury prone or whatever but his last injury was back in december 2011. since then he had a successful second part of the season with chelsea and an injury-free season with real madrid...
anyways he's waaaay better then muntari..essien comes, we offload muntari and voila!