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Nemanja Matic Serbia flag

2017-18 Performances

View full 2017-18 profile

6.2 Season Average Rating
Appearances
49
Goals
2
Assists
4
Yellow cards
6
Status
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Chelsea 1:0 Man Utd
He so lazy and poor at times. The amount of times today he passed the ball off to the side or back then didn’t move. It’s like he plays in 2nd gear all the time. He can certainly go when need be but it’s just so infrequent.
He does good and bad things in games but I can’t help but feel he is part of the problem as to why we play so disjointed, fractured, slowly however you want to put it.
 
Too passive for my liking. Carrick retired this week, different class entirely to Matic on the ball who is often unwilling to play a penetrative pass or look to hit the forwards early.
 
Sloppy as feck in the first half but a bit better in the second when he suddenly became more of an AM.
 
luke511 said:
Cant't believe he's getting criticised, easily our best player today.
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In the first half he had 80% pass completion even though he was just trying to keep it simple with his passes. He tried some dribbles down blind alleys too.
 
PepsiCola said:
Felt he was slow and languid on the ball.

Got caught out a few times too.
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Yeah i would agree with this. Surprised by some of the praise he's getting here. He holds onto the ball wayyyy too long and just generally slows things down. And the amount of times he goes on runs but has not idea where the feck he's going is infuriating. Generally been a fan of his this season, but i wouldn't pick this game to be so effusive about him

He was ok.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Yeah i would agree with this. Surprised by some of the praise he's getting here. He holds onto the ball wayyyy too long and just generally slows things down. And the amount of times he goes on runs but has not idea where the feck he's going is infuriating. Generally been a fan of his this season, but i wouldn't pick this game to be so effusive about him

He was ok.
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I think he goes on those runs when there is nothing else on and he needs to fill an extra role as well as his main one, because he takes responsibility. Same with holding the ball, he's looking for movement. He's got the odd misplaced pass in him but for an outfield player there is no player in our team near his level of consistency.
 
Bastian said:
I think he goes on those runs when there is nothing else on and he needs to fill an extra role as well as his main one, because he takes responsibility. Same with holding the ball, he's looking for movement. He's got the odd misplaced pass in him but for an outfield player there is no player in our team near his level of consistency.
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In the first half he did it because he was stuggling to find a teammate with his passes. He's normally at 90% or so pass completion, he was at 80% today. He tried to do too much himself, there were passes he could make to keep moves going and decided to hang onto the ball instead.

In the second half he didn't try to do it all himself. He kept the ball moving. He improved, as did Ander next to him. First half was poor, second half was good.
 
Bastian said:
I think he goes on those runs when there is nothing else on and he needs to fill an extra role as well as his main one, because he takes responsibility. Same with holding the ball, he's looking for movement. He's got the odd misplaced pass in him but for an outfield player there is no player in our team near his level of consistency.
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Oh, i like him on the whole. Think he's been a success. But he really did frustrate me today. Regardless of why he was doing it, he did it way too much Obviously we have bigger problems than Matic. And as you say, part of the reason he's doing it is because we lack of any sort of plan when we go forward. But he really did slow us down today.
 
I dont think the three men midfield of matic herera and pogba compliment each other.
 
Definitely our best player today. Still have no idea why Chelsea sold him, he was one of their best players.


meninred said:
I dont think the three men midfield of matic herera and pogba compliment each other.
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It worked great for most of the times they played as a three this season, but just didn't work that well today, possibly due to Herrera man marking Hazard.
 
Freak said:
He was solid again. Has been one of our best signing since Jose took over. We need some midfield cover for him though.
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He can break up the play very well but on the ball he is pretty average and slows the game down, keep passing sideways and taking away the directness needed to catch opposition team off guard.

Passing range is a very underrated quality of a footballer, and all of our successful teams had way better midfielders than what we have got in last 5 years.

He is decent but when the team plays without cohesiveness all over the pitch and are not coached to build up the attack a top passer who can open up defense with one pass is needed than him who has the vision to pass the ball forward just like Carrick did for us.
 
He has presence but lack creativity. He needs someone next to him to dictate the middle of the pitch and Pogba is not the right person for the job.
 
Matic is a very good player. Same as Lukaku. Both are good enough to start for top 4 clubs but not for title/CL winning teams, imo. Yes, Matic won two titles with Chelsea. However, in 14/15 there wasn't real competition and in 16/17 Kante was the protagonist, not Matic. You need better players than Matic and Lukaku to compete with a Guardiola team. Jose had Ronaldo when he beat Guardiola in 11/12. Ronaldo scored 46 league goals that season. That's more than Lukaku, Martial, Lingard and Rashford combined.

Has Matic improved our play? How? Defensively wise, we are worse than last season because we concede more chances. Offensively, we are better but not because we are more creative. The forwards have been more clinical.
 
It's very frustrating to see him keeping hte ball for too long because our play is very slow because of that but yesterday he tried to do something because we didn't seem to create a thing at least in the first half.

Saying all this he had a good season but I think he will become a bit of a problem for us because of his mobility. Our midfield is way too slow with him and Pogba, we need more dynamic midfielder there. Herrera did well alongside Pogba last season but he's not tall enough so he won't start, interesting to see who we bring in because there is at least one midfielder on the way.. Even though I'd be excited to see Savic in our shirt, he doesn't seem the player we need, we would have exactly the same problem..
 
Just to let you know..

Nemanja Matic in 2017/18
Category Total Man Utd rank
Passes 2601 1st
Successful passes 2281 1st
Passes in opposition third 1358 1st
Passes into final third 333 1st
Touches 3117 1st
Recoveries 317 1st
Tackles 70 1st
Interceptions 64 1st
Distance covered 409 km 1st


And just to let you know..

Since Nemanja Matic's return in January 2014
Player Ball recoveries
Nemanja Matic 1228
Mark Noble 970
N'Golo Kante 913
Gareth Barry 897
Steven Davis 886
 
MuranoLover said:
Just to let you know..

Nemanja Matic in 2017/18
Category Total Man Utd rank
Passes 2601 1st
Successful passes 2281 1st
Passes in opposition third 1358 1st
Passes into final third 333 1st
Touches 3117 1st
Recoveries 317 1st
Tackles 70 1st
Interceptions 64 1st
Distance covered 409 km 1st


And just to let you know..

Since Nemanja Matic's return in January 2014
Player Ball recoveries
Nemanja Matic 1228
Mark Noble 970
N'Golo Kante 913
Gareth Barry 897
Steven Davis 886
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He is a defensive midfielder, who has played the 2nd most minutes for us this season. Not exactly impressive he ranks so high.
 
Ekeke said:
In the first half he had 80% pass completion even though he was just trying to keep it simple with his passes. He tried some dribbles down blind alleys too.
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Did you not notice that nearly everytime he had the ball and travelled with it he was looking for a pass but all our forwards we're being marked and just stood still.

Not one of our attacking players was looking to get in behind.

In short, Matic had very little to aim at for a pass.

He had a very good game, given the lack of movement in front of him. Our best player on the day
 
Craig Ward said:
Did you not notice that nearly everytime he had the ball and travelled with it he was looking for a pass but all our forwards we're being marked and just stood still.

Not one of our attacking players was looking to get in behind.

In short, Matic had very little to aim at for a pass.

He had a very good game, given the lack of movement in front of him. Our best player on the day
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He didnt need to pass to forwards. The best teams in the world don't always force a pass forwards, they keep the ball moving to open spaces for someone to find that pass forward.

Thats exactly what was wrong, he was trying to pick up the ball, dribble past players and then find a creative pass. What happened? He ended up running down blind alleys and losing the ball a lot. Perhaps it was misunderstanding his role in the team with Ander playing DM, and Matic playing a normal CM role.

In he 2nd half he loosened up, stopped trying to do it all himself and kept the ball moving and thats when we had our best period of the game. When Matic and Ander improved in the 2nd half
 
Played too safe in the first half and seemed slightly off the pace, but immense in the second half. Hilarious short fight with CR coach because he thought it was our ball :lol:
 
Another full 90’. I don’t like that. He was fatigued well before the season ended. Still played very, very well for us, but I don’t want to see him showing up with less in the tank for next season than he did to start the last.
 
From what I have seen, and read, Serbians are far from happy with his performances, pretty much similar to criticisim he received here during the season. I wouldn't go into a new season with just him in his position.
 
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