Aside from the goal, assist and the times he came dangerously close though, he wasn't very threatening.
in other news, take out the best players in Rival Team X and what do they have? A side without great players. They are average I tell you.
Juan Mata
- Thread starter KM
- Start date
Aside from the goal, assist and the times he came dangerously close though, he wasn't very threatening.
in other news, take out the best players in Rival Team X and what do they have? A side without great players. They are average I tell you.
They have a very good talent coming through named Juan Bernat who is another skillful left footed 5'6 or so quick, passing player. He's 18 and mostly playing in cup games and off the bench and he's one to keep an eye on. I think he's a tougher character than Mata or Silva.
Since Mata, Valencia have mostly played with Mattieu and Jordi Alba down the left and they do great work together. Possibly the best overall left side in the game right now as they are Valencia's first two choices for left back (and Alba starts there for Spain) but they can both play left wing as well and have lots of pace and good delivery into the box.
Arsenal didnt bid for him so that would be hard
As I said, he wasnt brilliant but he was probably the most dangerous player on the pitch on the whole.
I think people get a bit too hung up on the Silva and Mata comparison. Silva is definitely the better playmaker on current form and will probably always have the edge when it comes to retaining the ball and being influencial up until the final third.
I think of Mata as more a blend of that and someone like Nani, who creates and scores goals, sometimes multiple in a match even if he didnt play his best. He produces for his team.
So for me Mata has a bit of the Silva play and a lot of what makes Nani so valuable to us
No point in putting in a bid if he wanted £150K a week.
No point putting in a bid if he's going to cost more than you ever pay for players.
I thought both Mata and Torres looked dangerous yesterday. Mata should play centrally more often.
We would have paid the £23M if he wanted to come but we're not going to give him 50% over his rate in our wage band.
Considering your highest transfer fee in the Wenger era was Nasri at £15.8M I'm skeptical you would have paid that much Pete. I didn't follow the Mata saga too closely mind you but Arsene doesn't seem one to pay top dollar anymore.
Sauce - Arsenal Transfers | Premiership Transfers
So with the goal, assist, and the times he came dangerously close though, he was very threatening?It's a moot point since once he was getting £150K he wasn't coming to us (or Spurs who thought they had him lined up). £23M is peanuts compared to 50% on a wage bill of £120M paid out very year.
Yeah, like you'd pay £30 million for Hazard. Or £35 million for Benzema.
Only you know, you don't. Ever. Because Wenger will never spend money like that.
Redknapp openly admitted he wanted to sign Mata for Spurs but I remember reading that he didn't want to join them - Arsenal was his prefered choice. But conversely Wenger didn't want him at the time.
Plus all it did was increase his price tag to suitors. So in a sense, perfect for Chelsea.
Plus all it did was increase his price tag to suitors. So in a sense, perfect for Chelsea.
Exactly. We couldn't offer him Cl football or the wages he really wanted but the 23 million, around 7 million higher than our record, didn't seem a problem.
I don't think transfer fees are necessarily a problem for clubs like us and Arsenal. However, with big transfer fees often come huge wages, especially for relatively established players like Mata. While Arsenal still pay significantly more than we do, neither of us can even come close to competing with the likes of Chelsea and City.
Transfer fees aren't the big expenditure, its completely dwarfed by the wage bill for every single club.
damn.Just watched MOTD2. Is anyone else a bit mystified about all the hype over his goal?
6 yards out. Completely un-marked. Able to watch the ball coming from miles away onto his strongest foot. I reckon I could have scored that one. Doubt I could have hit it as hard but hey, I'm not a professional footballer. Seen better goals in my weekly 7-a-side.
6 yards out. Completely un-marked. Able to watch the ball coming from miles away onto his strongest foot. I reckon I could have scored that one. Doubt I could have hit it as hard but hey, I'm not a professional footballer. Seen better goals in my weekly 7-a-side.
The ball came across his body. Trust me, that is a fecking difficult technique to get right. Needs to connect properly with a ball moving across his body from above, and keep it under the bar. Astonishing technique.
Astonishing? Not in the slightest.
It was a superb finish, the cross was hit slightly behind him so it took fantastic technique to manage to sort of side foot it and keep the ball fully under his control.
I thought it was a genuinely class goal myself.
Thought he took it very well but it didn't justify the hype... Upon replay.
At first I thought it was "astonishing" but when you see he watches it onto his instep it takes some of the gloss off. Still a good goal though.
At first I thought it was "astonishing" but when you see he watches it onto his instep it takes some of the gloss off. Still a good goal though.
I think you're judging that wrong. It was a brilliant strike. The ball is too high up for him to catch it with a regular volley, again, look at his technique, it's almost like he goes back to get it with his foot after it's travelled past his body.
Can't agree with you on that one Pogue, I thought it was a bloody brilliant strike. You must be pretty good if you could have struck one similar, I reckon I'd have sliced it behind me and out for a throw.
I agree. If he had leathered it with his laces it would have been astonishing. It was a controlled volley. Goal of the month contender but not a winner.
Yeah, but the way he controlled it, after it had sailed past him, back into the goal, with his instep, and still managed to put that sort of power into it.. the perfect finish from that situation basically.
Very good strike. I heard someone compare it to *that* volley by Van Basten. Which gets my "Pffffffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttt of the Week."
Pffffffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttt.
Pffffffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttt.
I'm not very good at all and I'm certain I would be able to hit the target from there. Well, not every time. I reckon I'd horribly shank a few. Probably the occasional air shot too.
Still, it's by no means astonishing. Not when he's under no pressure and has so long to prepare.
Still, it's by no means astonishing. Not when he's under no pressure and has so long to prepare.
It's actually a much more difficult skill to sidefoot it that hard in that height than just leathering it and hope for the best. Calculated.
The power came from the cross. He just needed a decent connection.
Now *that* was astonishing technique.
The cross was great, but still, it takes great technique to get that kind of power behind it. It's not like the ball was smacked into him and he deflected it into the roof of the net.
I can't be arsed really, just look at my earlier posts. IMO a great goal. Not goal of the season obviously, as someone mentioned, but still a bloody great goal.
If you just concentrate on side footing it, you'd get nowhere near the power and direction Mata got on it. He managed to hit it as sweetly and as hard as you or I could if we hit it with our laces, but with all the accuracy of placing the shot. It was a bit of a strange take, executed brilliantly.
As for Arsenal and buying Mata
Wenger is more concerned about this than buying players at high prices after they have good international tournaments. Arsenal are linked to a bunch of quality talents all the time, but they never sign the expensive ones. Just being linked with them appeases the Arsenal fans.
As for Arsenal and buying Mata
Wenger is more concerned about this than buying players at high prices after they have good international tournaments. Arsenal are linked to a bunch of quality talents all the time, but they never sign the expensive ones. Just being linked with them appeases the Arsenal fans.
If it had been Nani or Rooney we'd be talking it up as one of the goals of the season. It was a sublime goal.
Is that the royal we? Only I know I wouldn't.
As for the caf in general, it was similar to a half-volley Ronaldo scored in the first game of 06/07 against Fulham. I don't remember anyone talking that up as a goal of the season.
Come on now Pogue, it's a really well taken finish by Ronaldo but it's not really comparable to Mata's finish. That's just silly.
Ball coming accross his body away from the goal at good pace, its a fantastic strike.
I'd have to agree with you on that. It was a decent striker with decent technique, but you'd expect most attackers to be able to do that when we give them as much space as we gave him to measure up the shot.
When I saw the goal, I immediately wondered where were our defenders who were supposed to be marking him. I only thought about the quality of the goal after that.
Well it's coming across his body, which you seem to think makes it at least a little "astonishing".
Both tidy finishes IMO. Mata the better of the two. Doesn't deserve the hype it got on here and from the pundits though. Really wasn't all that special.
Neville said it was the way he took it that made it top drawer, it was almost behind him and he took it on in that mannor. It was classy but you would expect that, if he missed it would have been a bad miss considering the space he had which says it all. It's not astonishing if you're expected to score...
Saying that i think there is a real difficulty in making a great connection in this mannor when the ball has came such a distance, but again it was classy not "astonishing".
Saying that i think there is a real difficulty in making a great connection in this mannor when the ball has came such a distance, but again it was classy not "astonishing".