Mata and Matic's Chelsea careers

Based Adnan said:
Matic has been solid for us. Not his fault he got played week in week out and got played into the ground consistently. It's not a surprise he's had a bit of a renaissance lately after being in and out of the team.

The Mata of Chelsea and United are two different players. 19 goals 35 assists for Chelsea in 12/13. His best for us is 10 goals 11 assists in 15/16.
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Damn those numbers, 35 assists is insane.
 
Juan Mata was just a notch below David Silva. I think people forget how great he was. Used to watch Chelsea a lot and I would put his best season ahead of Hazards best season.
 
Matic was a decent signing and performed similarly for United as he had for Chelsea in his first season. He came back well this season, the season in between he was a bit all over the place. But you could say that about almost every player at the club in the last 2-3 years. Bad, unstable environment won't help performances.

Mata has been ok but disappointing, I thought we were getting a world-class playmaker when he's been a tidy attacking midfielder with an eye for goal but very little of that Chelsea magic. He's had a few false dawns, he was amazing against Liverpool under van Gaal, for example. But he's never sustained it and I've found him a really disappointing player in terms of passing creativity. You see the passes that Pogba plays sometimes and I expected Mata to have that in his locker. I'm not sure it's an ability thing as much of a mentality thing. For me, it looks like he takes the safe option too often, plays a sideways pass when a killer pass is on. Bruno Fernandes is another player that showed what Mata has been lacking, a bit of drive and courage from that position.
 
Luke1995 said:
This may also be a good place to ask how were Mata and Matic viewed as youth prospects before their careers really took off, although not sure if there are any experts on them over here

I do remember Mata being talked about as one with a bright future while at Valencia, but know little about Matic before Chelsea.

Abramovich has always done good bussiness, getting young players despite the failings with the big names like Shevchenko and Torres. He basically discovered Drogba, Essien, Mikel, and so on...
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Abramovich didn't discover anyone. The players it's well known he bought for his manager were the super famous two you mention.

He's not out there hearing about up and coming players.
Especially not Mikel who we'd signed first.
Or Essien and Drogba who were already storming europe.
 
I have a lot of Chelsea friends and when we brought these two players the general consensus amongst them was;

Mata; Loved the man but thought they had mugged Utd for money. Said that whilst he had good figures, they were a little deceiving as he didn't do that much off the ball and required the movement of other players to get the figures.

Matic: more annoyed about this one. One of them that watches a lot of football was furious because be said that he knew Bakayoko was dire (and that he owed his career to Fabinho) so whilst he understood taking the £40m, the replacement was wrong and he would've rather kept Matic than have Bakayoko. The others were happy to take the money but wanted different replacements after what my mate said about Bakayoko.
 
I'm actually quite surprised that some still think Mata hasn't performed for us just because he's put on the right, given that his (arguably) best time at Chelsea was playing on the right with Oscar at CAM and Hazard at LW. Fact is, he's had some poor games playing centrally, as well as some great games playing on the right, as simple as that. Hence, it's quite clear that position isn't the main issue.

The real problem is, as many have mentioned above, he's heavily reliant on the movement around him. At Chelsea, Oscar and Hazard offered all the support he needed, but we haven't been able to offer the same due to a lack of appropriate players and coaching. Unlike Silva, he's not good at protecting the ball and dribbling in tight spaces, that's why he often struggles when he's tightly marked and not as good as a playmaker you think.

Matic is a different story. He's adopted entirely different roles for Chelsea and for us and he plays equally well imo. He had the license to go forward a lot at Chelsea and he's sat in the holding role for us. He had a hard time playing alongside Kante as the only outlet but he successfully transformed to perfectly replace Herrera, our Player of the Year in the previous season. His passing and protection to defence were crucial in the double pivot setup partnering Pogba.
 
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