Matic - Debut season review

Green_Red

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Its seems like he has flown under the radar this season which is strange given hes played every premier league game for us.

So whats the verdict? Has he been a good signing or not really?
 
Fantastic signing, obviously. Still shocked that Chelsea sold him to United and replaced him with ... Bakayoko :lol:

Jose said he was close to giving him his 'Mangers Player of the Season' award, but decided to give it to McTominay instead.
 
Right now looking like Jose's best signing to date, just hope in 12 months time we're not talking about having to replace him
 
Best player in the team bar Dave.

Great signing all in all. Wish Pogba could learn from him.
 
charlenefan said:
Right now looking like Jose's best signing to date, just hope in 12 months time we're not talking about having to replace him
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Nar, he's got plenty of the Carrick's about him and his strength and calmness rather than his engine are his most important assets. Confident he'll be a very good player for us until at least his 33rd year.

Hopefully McT can be his eventual replacement if he keeps improving like this season.
 
Very good first season, if he turns out to be as crucial next year there will be a strong case of him being the best signing of Jose era.
 
Fantastic signing. Still can't believe Chelsea sold him to us and replaced with him Bakayoko. :lol:
 
Think he had an above average season, started the season better than he's finished it, like most I suppose.

Think he's a bit slow on the ball at times but overall he's done very well and provided a lot of much needed stability in our midfield.
 
I've not been impressed after a fantastic start. He holds on to the ball for far too long and is a big reason why our attacking play is so stifled. Where someone like a Carrick or Scholes would take one or two touches to release the ball, he takes three to four. I do like that he is among the very few players we have in the squad that is somewhat resistant to the press though, and he is definitely hard as nails.

If he could allay those qualities with a higher tempo, I'd be on the Matic hype train.
 
settembrini said:
He's okay. Herrera last season played the same position better.
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No white text?! :lol:

Matic has been superb for us this season. Probably our best out-field player over the past nine months, along with Lukaku (even considering Lukaku's quiet spell in winter). I wish he was 3-4 years younger and we had a lot more of him in his prime. He makes the game look so easy. Mourinho's best signing so far, for me.
 
Great signing though his prominence is symptomatic of our season; would much prefer that our attacking players were getting the end of season plaudits over our defensive players.
 
Our most important player this season for me.

Never noticed how good he was when at Chelsea as I rarely watch them. And even when I did watch the, you don't pay much attention to each player as you would watching your own team.

We knew we weren't getting Modric or Iniesta. He's a CDM and he's brilliant at it. Good business, great player.
 
Really good signing.

I cant imagine where we'd be given Pogba's form and Herrera's injuries, Fellaini and McTominay would probably starting in a midfield 2.

My only wish is for him to be a few years younger but oh well.
 
He is excellent in his defensive work. However if I have one complaint against him is that he slows the attack. Every time he gets the ball he doesnt look to release the ball forward, he takes a step or two or makes a side/back pass. Our attack suffers incredibly because of this. Jose I am sure wants to build a counter attacking team and this role is pivotal for it. Transitioning from defence to attack needs to quicken up.

He needs to improve this part of his play. Rest is fantastic.
 
Good CM (A bit of everything, on the ball a lot, some tackles) missing too often defensively for a DM. Needs some help tracking back
 
mewnew11 said:
He is excellent in his defensive work. However if I have one complaint against him is that he slows the attack. Every time he gets the ball he doesnt look to release the ball forward, he takes a step or two or makes a side/back pass. Our attack suffers incredibly because of this. Jose I am sure wants to build a counter attacking team and this role is pivotal for it. Transitioning from defence to attack needs to quicken up.

He needs to improve this part of his play. Rest is fantastic.
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You see I disagree, when there's movement and options ahead of him I think he releases the ball just fine. Plenty of examples in the video above. All too often though our movement in forward positions is poor and it's better to hold the ball in those cases rather than just chancing it.
 
He's been good, despite looking like he has been running on fumes at a few points in the season. It's a shame Carrick wasn't available to give him the occasional rest, as he looked incredible early season and merely good towards the end.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
You see I disagree, when there's movement and options ahead of him I think he releases the ball just fine. Plenty of examples in the video above. All too often though our movement in forward positions is poor and it's better to hold the ball in those cases rather than just chancing it.
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Agreed with the players in front of him. Playing with players like mata limits the counter attack but still there is room for improvement. Even when we are in the opponent half, observe that he likes to run with a ball a bit before passing when the option of a simple one touch pass is available.
So if Carrick were as old as matic now and you had to pick one , who would you pick? I'd pick Carrick because of his passing range and his attack mindedness.
 
Yes, he's not the prefect player, but who is? If only half of our squad had the work ethic of Matic...
 
He has flown under the radar? Wtf, there isn't a game that goes by where people aren't praising him to the heavens or saying he needs a rest when he doesn't play him.

Good player for FWIW. Don't think his impact has been as big as people think though - for one, De Gea is a lot more involved this season suggesting we're a slightly worse defensive unit (the other reason being our defense has been hit by more injuries).

He's definitely not as good as he was in 14/15 though so we've got him on the on the downside of his career unfortunately. Still a good player though.
 
He is very good and had very good season. I was surprised at how good he is on the ball. At Chelsea when they won league, I saw him more as a destroyer but his dribbling and passing is really good (except few very erratic passes against Brighton and other small teams).
 
More often than not if he has a great game, we’re great. If he has a bad game, we’re awful.

I think that in itself says how important he is for the team.
 
sugar_kane said:
More often than not if he has a great game, we’re great. If he has a bad game, we’re awful.

I think that in itself says how important he is for the team.
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We haven't been 'great' often. Functional yes, great no.
 
mewnew11 said:
So if Carrick were as old as matic now and you had to pick one , who would you pick? I'd pick Carrick because of his passing range and his attack mindedness.
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That really is a tough one, I love Carrick's passing range so 99% of the time it'd be him, but can I just swap out Carrick for Matic in those two CL finals versus Barca? :nervous:
 
settembrini said:
He was our POTY and comfortably better than Matic has been this season. We finished sixth due to poor finishing by our attackers and because we gave up on the league early to focus on the EL.
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POTY was voted for by fans. I'd say Zlatan was more deserving of POTY last season.

Matic has been miles better though Herrera can "do a job" as the saying goes. Playing every minute and gave us stability in midfield for most games bar some games where he had his dips in form. Also covering Pogba's lazy arse at times, as well as having to deal with inconsistent CBs. Curiously, our CBs were much better last season, its' been a bit of a dip.

I'd give Matic's season a solid 7/10, which is impressive considering he's played almost every game.
 
Great start to the season but feel like he really dropped off since the turn of the year. Overall pretty damn good tho.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
That really is a tough one, I love Carrick's passing range so 99% of the time it'd be him, but can I just swap out Carrick for Matic in those two CL finals versus Barca? :nervous:
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Don't think it would make a difference.

They would've suffocated Matic like they suffocated Carrick and the rest of our midfield. Alonso/Kronos and a Modric who could play against them would have the best hope but i'd still back the Barca midfield to come up trumps with the way they played in those finals. cnuts bought their a-game everytime they played us.
 
Been good.. But been little tired and out of pace since the end of Jan.. We truly need to address this in the summer, he plays far to much.
 
He's had a solid season in my humble he if he looked tired from January on.
He was the best player on the pitch a few times this season.
 
Started off well. Get's away with criticism because of classy early games and Bakoyoko has been shit at Chelsea.

Has been very poor at times, no surprise to see no mention of it. He's been walked past many times, hasn't been great at shielding the defence at times and has been complicit in the odd goal where we've lost runners from midfield. Again, I'm not surprised it hasn't been picked up more.

6.5/10 - Herrera was much better last season. Pogba's best football comes alongside Herrera.

He's okay. Will need replacing/improving on soon. Though the sad thing is I see him remaining longer than Pogba will.

Edit - I almost forgot the 'he's looked tired/needs a break' stuff. Yeah there was a game where he had a 10 day or so break prior to. Matchday/performance thread was filled with "he looks tired" "he needs a break".
 
arthurka said:
Been good.. But been little tired and out of pace since the end of Jan.. We truly need to address this in the summer, he plays far to much.
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It's a weird myth this one, I mean, he looked tired during and after the Christmas period but since then he's been full of beans. In our wins v. Chelsea, City, Liverpool, Spurs, and that comeback v. Palace he was everywhere and was absolutely top drawer.
 
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