Tonight? He's been Old Yeller for the last four years.Bit of an Old Yeller game tonight.
8
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 18
- Goals
- 3
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 0
- Status
Apologies, meant to specify that he should only start against significantly weaker teams in home PL matches. He very occasionally delivers in away games against inferior opposition, such as Newcastle a few weeks back, but not nearly enough.
He hasn't played as a #10 once this season. He's been playing on the right with either Bruno or VDB at #10.
Over the course of his entire time here he's disappointed whenever played in the centre. I can't remember about LVG, but both Mourinho and Ole tried playing him as a #10 early on when they joined and each time they ended up having to drop him or move him to the right because he wasn't doing well enough. Hell, last season he ended up being dropped for Pereira because Andreas was comfortably out-performing him there. He's generally done better on the right.
Mata's performance yesterday is what I've come to expect over the last three seasons. He produces a good performance about once every couple of months and his fan club start to get vocal about him starting, or being the only one that can link with Kagawa or di Maria or Herrera or Pogba or Bruno and now VDB.
He should only be a starter in easy games, meaning no PL games and no CL games unless we've qualified. He can play in the mickey mouse cups when we rest our real starters.
He should only be a starter in easy games, meaning no PL games and no CL games unless we've qualified. He can play in the mickey mouse cups when we rest our real starters.
His legs have been gone for a long while now but in fairness he was like Lassie in a couple of games this season.
It was terrible control from Mata that led to the second goal. He had plenty of time to control it. His first touch was very poor in that instance.
It’s like Pogba’s case all over again, isn’t it? I don’t think you can deny that anymore.
Not really. Pogba's issue is whether he is giving a feck or not. He seldom shines when others are useless and vice versa. With Mata, the issue is that if others around him are not playing well, there is no way that he'd play well, and if others are playing well, it's more likely than not that he is a contender for MOTM.
I disagree. I think the heat maps will generally show as him having been much more central during his better performances this season. He may have moved to the right to take the position in our defensive formation, but once we had the ball he moved to the central pockets of space.
Last night he was consistently wide right first half. At the start of the second half it was clear him and Rashford had been instructed to stay even wider and hug the touchline. Unsurprisingly, he was completely ineffectual.
I'm not sure how you can judge if Pogba gives a feck or no. Pogba's problem has always been him being inconsistent and the same goes with Mata all those years in the last 3-4 years. Inconsistent and yet there are people in here are trying to make excuses just like how people used to make lot of excuses about Pogba.
It's quite obvious when Pogba is giving a feck or not. You can see the effort in defending and going forward and you'd see him either being in the defensive or attacking box competing for a header or a loose ball or helping the team recycle the ball.
But anyways, I'll leave it at that.
The number 10 stuff.
Mata plays with a free role most of the time. He is not stuck on the right wing.
I didn’t see the effort from Mata, did you? At least despite of poor performance from Bruno, I saw effort from him trying to making something happen.
Thats how he has always played for us. He takes up the right wing when we defend but he freely roams when we are in possession
The effort was there. I mean look at distance covered yesterday - he covered 7.8km yesterday in 60 mins - so it's not that he wasn't running around trying to make things happen, it's that he wasn't effective at that, and that is a forgivable offence.
He tried to get back to help the defence if needed, and while he wouldn't be having a lot of interceptions or tackles to show for it, that's ok by me as long as you're giving your 100%
You know, distance covered means nothing if it’s just jog, walk and run headless chicken. By using your argument, Mata distance cover is nowhere near in that 18/19, I guess no effort in Mata then right? I’ve seen Pogba trying to get back to help defense as well. Both have same issue, inconsistency and you are making excuses to defend Mata like how people did with Pogba.
You know, distance covered means nothing if it’s just jog, walk and run headless chicken. By using your argument, Mata distance cover is nowhere near in that 18/19, I guess no effort in Mata then right? I’ve seen Pogba trying to get back to help defense as well. Both have same issue, inconsistency and you are making excuses to defend Mata like how people did with Pogba.
I don't understand this picture, how many games are included here, 3 oder 4?
If it's the first 3-4 games in 2018/19, then Mata played only 1.5 of them, so what do you mean?
You know, distance covered means nothing if it’s just jog, walk and run headless chicken. By using your argument, Mata distance cover is nowhere near in that 18/19, I guess no effort in Mata then right? I’ve seen Pogba trying to get back to help defense as well. Both have same issue, inconsistency and you are making excuses to defend Mata like how people did with Pogba.
I'm sorry, but I'm not having the sprint stats available, and while I agree Sprints is a better indicator,
As far as this pic is concerned, it seems that you've piked the 1st 3-4 games. Not sure how many games and how many minutes Juan played
Go look at the post above you that has new picture from the official PL website and come back.
This one better. Distance per match.
Care to divide total distance by total minutes played?
Mata comes across as better as per this - 132 m/min vs 116 m/min and while I get when you're playing 90 mins, that number is going to come down, Pogba plays as a CM (who are expected to cover more distance) than a player playing between RW and CAM.
That makes more sense - thank you.
Based on that logic, his number with Kante is only 11 difference. If it was truly what you said about Pogba’s issue is his effort not his inconsistency like Mata then he shouldn’t be anywhere near someone who is known as player that covers lot of ground like Kante.
Now for comparison - compare Mata's distance per min to KdB, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez, Mane and other wingers.
And then compare Pogba's distance/min to other CMs like Gundogan, Fred, Fernandinho, Jorginho, etc.
And you'd notice that Mata's workrate is hardly an issue (sprints and effectiveness while we're defending is). Whereas, for Pog, he'll be a good 10m less than all these players.
P.S. I'm not even sure why we're comparing Mata's and Pogba's work rate btw. With Pogba, it's more of an attitude issue. With Mata, it's more about which team (as in have our players turned up for the game or not) is playing that day that is the issue.
Based on that logic, his number with Kante is only 11 difference. If it was truly what you said about Pogba’s issue is his effort not his inconsistency like Mata then he shouldn’t be anywhere near someone who is known as player that covers lot of ground like Kante.
This is metres per min. Over 90 mins, this translates to a km. Add to that Jorginho covered a lot of distance as well.
I’m not comparing the work rate. You are the one who brings the work rate and the distance cover first in your logic as an excuses that you said Pogba and Mata case was different because Pogba issue was he didn’t give feck all.
I’m just using this distance cover because it’s your logic even though I tried to tell you it means nothing. And the difference between Pogba and Kante were only 11m/min.
I disagree. At times he does that. Other times he is clearly being told to play on the right-hand side even when in possession.
Do you really think Pogba gives his 100% consistently? In terms of talent, he is arguably the most complete midfielder in the world but how many times do you see anything but glimpses of that?
And like I said earlier, 11m/min is a lot. It translates to a km per game
Didn’t I tell you the issue of Pogba was being Inconsistent. Just like Mata, his issue is him being inconsistent of what he does. Stop using players and system as excuses. Any footballer can cover 11m in few seconds. It’s not a lot and we are comparing him to someone who likes to cover lot of ground like Kante who has different role than Pogba. This shows your logic using distance cover is just meaningless to describe player give feck or no.
Mate, I said giving 100% consistently, and you picked up just the adjective there. And covering 11m per min more than another player every single minute is quite a big number - It's basically 1km over a game. For a team, that translates to 11km.
Add to that, everyone sees Pog try those lazy passes, something that is more because of attitude. I don't even dislike Pog, but him not being a success here is completely down to him. Without making this a Pogba thread, that's all I've got to say.
I used km/game argument and you moaned about it and now you are coming back to that. 1km per game difference is nothing when you look at Mata has almost 2 km difference less to Pogba if we judge it based on per game and Mata tends to drift from right to central means he should have higher number for the distance cover.
And the same I can say about Mata, him not being success here is down to him because that's his ability and his limit not because the players or system. It's weird how Mata still had top performance in certain games playing alongside those same players that you believed were the main reason why Mata has been underperformed all these years.
Wish there was a facepalm smiley. All I'm asking you is use KM/90min stat. Mata plays 60mins a game max - so obviously you'll end up with that conclusion if you use km/appearance stat!
Oh anant, if there is a facepalm smiley I would have use it 2 days ago when Mata performed so shit despite of playing with his favourite boys Bruno & VDB not with Lukaku.
So 60min per game max is your excuse now? Stop making excuse will ya. You don’t need to use KM/90min stat on Pogba & Kante argument because both have played almost the same amount of game in that stats and it’s only 1 km per appearance or 11m per minute. That’s nothing big margin of gaps.
1 km is an awful lot per game per player, and I'm not even sure why you're comparing Pogba with Kante. Compare him to a Gundogan as well, and even then he'll be quite behind.
And 60min/game is not an excuse. It's just normalizing the metrics! It's like saying Bruno is a shit signing because he scored only 8 league goals in the entire season despite playing as a #10
I compare him to Kante because Kante is one of the best player in covering lot of ground. The fact that Kante himself and Pogba is only 1km/game or 11m/min doesn’t mean much.
Except, there is nothing Bruno can do because he was signed end of January while there is something Mata can do by playing more discipline or having better stamina or work harder or anything else he can to improve his weakness because there is damn reason he can do to improve to convince managers to play him 90 minutes.
You do realize that this is going nowhere right? Compare Pogba with Gundogan, Jorginho, or any other CM and the difference is still going to be 1km/game - which is an awful lot!
And how are you not getting the 2nd bit - denominator needs to be uniform. Mins is a uniform metric. Appearances is not. As far as the weaknesses is concerned, I don't think anyone has said that he is a work horse or anything. Everyone recognizes that physically he is below par
It’s not going anywhere if you don’t provide anything but talk. You need to show me something then we can going somewhere.
I used a m/min as per you asked initially remember. You are the one who decided to brings up the km/game and when I used that, you decided to make excuse of Mata only played 60min per game. I don’t think my argument was about his work rate, my argument is that both mata and Pogba issue are their inconsistent performance.
I'm still using m/min. I'm just scaling that up to 90mins - which actually highlights the difference.
My argument is that Pogba's inconsistency is because of lack of effort/ lack of giving a feck from his side, unlike Mata where the issue is that he is suited to a specific play style and one can more often than not tell whether Mata would have a good game or not based on just the team sheets or after watching first 5 mins of a game when the tempo of the game is set
Why are people arguing about how much Mata runs around? He’s an old man! Give him a break.
It's a weird one isn't it.
He was never fast, and never that much of an athlete even in that amazing Chelsea season.
He should have been politely moved on years ago, but just like Jonesy, you know he'll still be here in 3-4 years
Spot on. It doesn't matter how much he sprints he is slower than Matic jogging. His best position is further forward in the centre even if he loses possession it doesn't harm the team
- Status