Yeah but Rooney isn't spanish and was signed a decade ago, big difference clearly
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All fair points, especially on Rooney.
I haven't said he played well in the Swansea or Sunderland game. But hardly anybody played well in those games and certainly today Mata was one of the players that annoyed me the least, in fact I think today he was one of the few decent players, not brilliant not even good but just decent or atleast acceptable if compared to the others. That is why I don't get the over the top critcism he is getting from you, again what has he done this game to upset you this much, because I can certainly tell you I was fuming when watching United this evening but it was Cleverley, Fletcher, Young and Valencia that were winiding me up primarily and to an extent also Rooney and RVP because I always expect something from him and he literally did feck all, our defense I was happy with, didn't do much wrong and from all other outfield players Mata was the one that didn't annoy, he certainly didn't blow me out of the water or anything like that, yet I was happy at his intelligent run in that led to the goal. So if you want to vent frustration, I get it but shouldn't you be all over the other players first instead of brining it all onto Mata ?
Mata playing really bad is not Mata not making creative passes when there is no opportunity for him to make any, it would be Mata not playing decent passes when there are alot of opportunities for him to do so. Mata can certainly do wrong in my eyes, but again why should I single him out if he was one of the only players today that I actually saw doing something good ? He didn't play brilliant and he can certainly do alot better, actually the reason i'am defensing him on here is because I know he can do alot better, because I have seen it already in other games and at Chelsea. I'am I happy at his performance no, but if you can't accept that his performance is also linked to the performance of other players in the team than there is no point in discussing with you. Again how can he set up a goal or anything like that if RVP and Rooney don't run into the box ?
Chelsea became a better because they brought in Mourinho not because they let go of Mata. Certainly Mourinho chose Oscar over Mata because he is more his type of player, that doesn't mean Mata is a bad player and was pulling Chelsea down it just means that Mourinho chose a path forward for Chelsea in which he didn't need mata anymore, another coach might have had a different path forward with Mata that might also have succeeded, in fact Mourinho never even tried Mata, he just consistently didn't play him and picked oscar over him, alot of Chelsea fans didn't understand his decision and still don't understand his decision in that respect but accepted it because he was Mourinho and was higher in the their hirarchy then Mata and because Chelsea were doing beter than in the previous years. Ofcourse Mata wasn't the only different factor to previous years, most important was a diffrent coach and certain reinforcements like Willian, Schürle, Eto'o and ofcourse Matic and Mourinho didn't drastically improve Chelsea, he made them more consistent versus smaller teams but they weren't exactly title challening last season, Liverpool and City were and they justifybly ended up behind both of them, they weren't any more challening than Arsenal. And yea now this season they will be up there but that is because they have Courtois, Costa, Luis and Fabregas as additions. I think you are seriously overstating the effect Mata had in this change, like he was somehow the one holding it all back and having the guts to drop him somehow solved all their problems ?
In fact here is a really nice analysis of Mata under Mourinho and how Mourinho basically had laready made up his mind about Mata and Oscar in the first place and just set him up to fail by playing him as a RW.
http://eplindex.com/51200/mourinhos-matter-mata-rapidly-discounted-importance-juan-mata.html
It is not because you need great players around you to get the best out of you that you are a passenger. I wouldn't exactly call him a passenger, he has scored 7 goals and gave 5 assists in a total of 18 games he has played for United, how is that bad, how the feck can you even suggest he is a passenger ? If he is a passenger than who the feck isn't according to you ?
I was hard on him last week but I actually thought he was better. Certainly better than RvP and Rooney. He dropped deep to get the ball quite often (though can you blame him considering who we had in CM?) I want to see him and Welbeck play together. They looked good in pre-season and Mata can play around Welbeck's pace.
I thought he was pretty crap, and yet still managed to be in our top 5 best performers... which speaks for itself really.
It is funny that whenever Mata or Kagawa plays poorly, the majority of posters blame everyone else but when Rooney plays poorly, there's barely a single peep about how other players performed.
Definitely.
When they are poor they don't give the ball away and play with a first touch that feels like a ball hitting a lead foot. Rooney's short range passing and overall game has been comfortably worse than anything Mata or Kagawa have produced and his industriousness has dropped several levels since his prime.
Because they are at the very least tidy. Rooney's touch and passes become awful when he's playing poorly.
Rooney being piss poor at his worst shouldn't be a reason why Kagawa and Mata get excuses rolled out when they play poorly. And both are absolutely spineless at their worst.
How people are discrediting him after our open to the season is beyond me.
I vaguely recall after a Utd vs Chelsea match a few years ago a good post @Brwned made about Mata. People were saying he ran the game against us which I thought was a huge exaggeration. Brwned said something to the effect that he was a creative attacker who tended to drift in and out of games rather than a playmaker who controlled matches across the full 90 minutes. I thought it made sense at the time and I worry it still holds true. I wanted him to be the creative hub of the team but I'm starting to have my doubts as to whether that's the right role for him. That doesn't mean he can't be a success here,but it might mean yet more shuffling around looking for the right formation and line up.
I think it's always been painfully obvious that he's not a playmaker. He's a final 3rd player and a brilliant one at that but not the kind of player we needed. Still, it could have been worse. We might have signed Ozil for 40m and he doesn't even score tap ins.
Agree with a lot of what you've said in this thread (especially the last sentence)
Mata seems to have some "get out of jail free" card which makes him immune from any criticism from the vast majority of caftards, no matter how badly he plays. It's frustrating. I assume it's on the basis of his record at Chelsea because if people on here really rate him as highly as they do based on how he's played for United than this place has gone to the dogs far more comprehensively than I feared.
Through most of last season his relative anonymity when we needed him most was put down to a crap manager, playing him out of position. Now he's under a very good manager, playing in his preferred position and equally as peripheral. I remember thinking he was great at Chelsea and I still hope he can turn things round at United but I do worry that he's not as good as he's being made out to be and that he's turning out to be a 40m quid headache Van Gaal could really do without.
Noodle is right about title challenging and Mata, it's something I felt even while he was here even during his excellent second season with us.
I never felt as though we could win the title with him, he didnt contribute enough to that. Winning titles is about a lot more than goals and assists, but that's a symptom of the narrow minded view of football whereby attacking players get far more praise and support than ones that attack and defend.
Willian for example does a far better job than Mata towards winning a title, but I doubt many would say Willian was a better player, simply because hes not quite as a technical.
'Better player' is all subjective. Vidic is a better player than RVP and Rooney imo ( all at their peak).
Once we had established Willian into the team and Mata had gone we had our best form and conceded about 3 goals in 11 games, now Matic and Fabregas are in the side full time his contrubition is shown even more.
It's something i;ve had to come to realise too, as some of you know I was against the selling of Mata at first, but within a month I came to realise that it was for the good of the team.
I never felt as though we could win the title with him, he didnt contribute enough to that. Winning titles is about a lot more than goals and assists, but that's a symptom of the narrow minded view of football whereby attacking players get far more praise and support than ones that attack and defend.
Willian for example does a far better job than Mata towards winning a title, but I doubt many would say Willian was a better player, simply because hes not quite as a technical.
'Better player' is all subjective. Vidic is a better player than RVP and Rooney imo ( all at their peak).
Once we had established Willian into the team and Mata had gone we had our best form and conceded about 3 goals in 11 games, now Matic and Fabregas are in the side full time his contrubition is shown even more.
It's something i;ve had to come to realise too, as some of you know I was against the selling of Mata at first, but within a month I came to realise that it was for the good of the team.
Agreed..building an effective unit comes first. Individually, RVP, Rooney and Mata.. are all capable of racking up decent stats, but for a guy like Danny.. makes us look a far better team due to his ability to run at players. He is a handful.
I didn't realize that we're ready to start knocking Mata yet. Signed in January, played under a shite manager out of position with a bunch of pedestrians for nearly 6 months. Yup his number is up!
if any of Rooney or RVP did any better then I get that we're hard on Mata,but they were all rubbish and to that end I would say he gets a few more matches under the new manager to prove his worth.
I would have thought these two results would have indicated maybe Moyes wasnt as bad as was made out, and that a lot of the onus is on the players?
Playing out of position is a poor excuse as well, its not as if hes being played in goal. You are right though Rooney or RVP arent much better at present, this is a problem though, you constantly say they are your best three players but in the last season and 2 games they have not shown it at all. How long do they still ride on this ' best three status'?
DDG is by far and away your best player, and this season so far I think Blackett has been your second best.
We currently have a star studded attacking department (Mata, Kagawa, Rooney, RVP and Januzaj) and yet we still playing shite. Now either Chelsea's player of the year (2 occasions), Bundersliga player of the year, the captain, one of the finest strikers in the EPL and one of the most promising wingers in the world have suddenly become shit or else we simply do not have an adequate defensive department to support them.
Hence why I don't see Di Maria as the answer. He's a fantastic player but priority should be given to the DM and defense
Hence why I don't see Di Maria as the answer. He's a fantastic player but priority should be given to the DM and defense
It's more to do with the system, I believe.
At no point have both Rooney and RvP shown that they can play together - even during Fergie's last season. Individually, those three are the best players at the club, but when played together, they just don't work at all!
Plus they need a midfield to supplement them. Atleast a functional one.
They may be talented but they are too static (I am thinking of the "first choice" three of Mata, RVP and Rooney). Unless the option is Di Maria or midfielder (and surely we can afford both given the circumstances), then I see only upside with Di Maria. United have gone far too long without a high quality, pacey attacker with dribbling ability (probably going back to Nani's deceptive "emergence" in 2010).
I'd be patient. I really think if someone can get them ticking, it'll be Van Gaal, but it's still incredibly early days to be writing them all off. They need more training and more games in this new system to get them playing more naturally.
Also, for some reason, people on here seem to think Mata is a below par player. All things considered, Mata is the best number 10 at the club. And it was Rooney himself who didn't want the sideshow role at the club anymore. Now that he has been put at the top, I don't see any reason for him to drop deep in the midfield now that we have Mata on the pitch. In the last two matches, many a times when Mata has received the ball, he had no one to pass in front of him and was crowded out for space, hence had to pass it sideways.
Can't believe what I'm reading at times on here. Don't care what Chelsea fans say, he was head and shoulders their best player. They are not a better team solely cause he's left. Mata came here in January to the worst team for a decade. It's still the worst utd team for a decade. LVG I believe will put it right but you need the best players to do so. Mata would not look out of place and has the technical ability to play at any top team in the world.
The best teams have access to the best players and he's one of them. I think we need wake up cause we can't just keep apportioning blame on individual players when the sum of the parts are so bad.
Anyone also forgotten that's 7 goals in 9 games now for Mata?
The best teams have access to the best players and he's one of them. I think we need wake up cause we can't just keep apportioning blame on individual players when the sum of the parts are so bad.
Anyone also forgotten that's 7 goals in 9 games now for Mata?
Yup, and even marking Mata off right now is senseless. He just needs time and a settled system to start performing, which we still don't have thanks to the injuries and the midfield. Even with Chelsea, they had a system of 4-2-3-1 and kept to that. We have constantly changed it since last season to try out all sorts of things, which obviously doesn't help any of the players.
Btw, Mata was comfortably the best player of our front 5 yesterday. RVP and Fletcher worst.
Di Maria may improve the situation slightly. However the major issue is still there. We are expecting the likes of Cleverley, Fletcher and Fellaini to win the ball, shield the defense and pass it to the right channels where these players can do the damage. Its basically like installing a mini minor engine on an F16 and expect it to fly.
Rooney drops deep because he gets zero fecking service from the midfield or Mata. When he does get it there's a wall of defenders ahead of him so he goes wide. Rinse and repeat. If we were playing good football there would be no reason for Rooney to drop deep but the fact that we're shit means he drops deeper and deeper until he's deeper than the actual CM's. RVP just disappears when we are shit.
Mata (along with Rooney and RVP) is part of the problem, the sooner people accept that, the better.
What do you think about playing Mata as the most attacking option in a 3 men midfield (alongside DM such as De Jong and Herrera)? I think he would be great in that role.
Chelsea are better without Mata because they replaced him with William, who is miles better defensively and is faster. They are playing Oscar in no10 role, who is more of a playmaker than last 3rd player like Mata IMO. They make a better unit defensively, and when you have Hazard, Fabregas and Costa in the team plus Oscar and William then you don’t have to worry about goals.
I don’t think anybody is questioning Mata’s ability, it’s just he thrives in certain circumstances which at this moment we can’t provide.
Footballs about opinions but none of those players that supposably replaced him have influenced them winning anything in the same way Mata has done. When they do, then you and Chelsea might have an argument. Their loss is our gain IMO.
To say he thrives on certain circumstances? Isn't that the same of every player....and yes there are those who question his ability to perform at this club.
Of course. But Mata at least keeps the play ticking. And people are easily forgetting how Mata, Kagawa, Adnan linked together at the end of last season.
And it's not as if Rooney helps by dropping deeper. He only passes it out wide wherein the pass is either cut off by the defender, or the cross hits the first man.
Oscar can 'playmake', or whatever that even is, all he likes, he's a serious downgrade on Mata and that was particularly evident during the final stretch last season. Mata is a better player by a fair distance and has proven so for a good number of years. Wilian is a good fit for Chelsea, but again, not as good.
Fabregas is a better player, and Chelsea will improve as a result of his inclusion in the team, but the majority of the discussion in this thread is hugely symptomatic of the grass is greener complex with which so many supporters suffer. One year ago Mata had just torn the league to pieces and was a legitimate member of the footballing elite. I thought he was better than Bale that season and I said as much at the time. Yet now, now we see him every week, and only look to search for negatives, "he's just not that good." I know you didn't say that, by the way. Honestly, I find it baffling.
We have one of the best footballers in the league and one of the best #10s in the game. Certainly one of the most productive. We need to ensure we can get the most out of that. A 433 with wide runners like Di Maria and Januzaj would be a good start.
He's a great player - not one of my favourites - but regardless, he positioned himself greatly for the goal. I think that was one of three actual runs the forwards made off the ball, which is staggering. My gripe yesterday was that he looked just as passive as Fletcher and Cleverley in coming for the ball, and he had just as many sloppy passes as Rooney was making.
This was my question for last season as well. We had pretty much the same squad if we look at the midtfield and attack, and we sorely needed a defender (to fill in the gap after the players we knew were leaving) and midtfield (a position we have been screaming to strenghten for several/many years). I find it strange that nothing, or very little has been done in those areas. But on the other hand, we have more than overfilled the attacking positions. Yes DiMaria is a great player and really awesome in many ways, but this was not really what we needed right now...
It's something to do with these Mata/Ozil/Kagawa type fancy players who can go through a game doing nothing useful at all, but because they can pass the ball in slightly more silky looking ways than other players, for some reason this elevates them from criticism. In Mata and Ozil's case, doing absolutely feck all of use when the other team has the ball also seems to be deemed unimportant. There's only two players on the planet who are good enough to act like pedestrians when the other team is in possession, and it's not Mata and Ozil.
Kagawa is also a particularly baffling one because when he plays badly his first touch is horrific and his passing not much better...but he got played out of position to start with and that became the go to excuse. With Mata it actually has become everyone else in the team's fault, but in reality he just doesn't do enough, or even try to do enough, which to me isn't acceptable.
He's certainly not the only one I'd label that at, but this thread is called "Juan Mata 2014-2015 performances", so despite the crybaby protestations, it does seem like a logical place to dicuss the performances of Juan Mata...I don't want a team of cowards and at the moment we're carrying far too many of them. They got an easy ride last season hiding behind Moyes while he took 90% of the shite...now there is no excuse left to carry on hiding.
What does "keeps the play ticking" mean? He's not there to keep the play ticking. He's there to create chances which he doesn't look like doing any time soon. And no people aren't forgetting anything. A 20 minute spell against a Newcastle side that was beyond pathetic should not be used as a mesaure for anything.
Talking and thinking like Mourinho, what a surprise!
So with Willian you win titles? Come back when you have won as many titles with Willian as with Mata!
Also great to read you conceded "3 goals in 11 games" with Willian. And how many did you score?
You know if your manager's mind set was a bit more positive than that, you would have managed to score more than just one lucky goal over 180 minutes against Atletico Madrid where you didn't have the "anti-title-machine" Mata, but instead your other awesome players available. But if you are not called Mourinho or his Chelsea, then football is not only about not conceding, but that is his style and he only allows one and an half player at the very most who doesn't defend almost all the time. That's also why his multi-million teams are so brilliant to watch.
Ofc Mata is in most games not the right player if Mourinho wants all his team to defend and play as an underdog, he is a creative player who will contribute to attacking. There are a lot of great players who wouldn't fit Mourinho's system, take Iniesta for example. Doesn't mean he isn't a great player either.
Hopefully you keep your consistency and once you don't win a game you come here blaming Oscar/Willian the same way you come here everytime United don't win with Mata.
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