[12OunceEpilogue]

It's crazy how immediately he was made a starter vs Tottenham, without preseason and after a surgery

Indeed, and it's up to the manager, the coaches, the medical team and dare I say the player himself to say 'this footballer is not fit, he needs proper rest'. He's one of Jose's trusted lieutenants and all the rest, but if we're in the business of fielding players without the physical bona fides for the job why not sign Essien, Terry and Ricky Carvalho while we're at it?

If Jose wants Matic to play whenever fit that's one thing, if he's willing to run him into the ground after a far from ideal summer just so he can have one of his boys on the pitch that's a ridiculous state of affairs.

 

[Stadjer]

Mourinho his new Ivanovic? Good player turning into a old player who is a risk for the team yet plays all the time?

 

[#07]

Matic has not been very good for awhile now. If I am Herrera, Perreira and Fred I am asking serious questions about what I'm not getting a go ahead of him. His distribution was downright terrible at time last night: A midfield Chris Smalling on the ball.

 

[Canagel]

If this isn't the game that finally causes his dropping I give up. How many times did he give the ball away? And then that backheel attempt left me speechless.

 

[PepsiCola]

Popping in to say again he is complete crap and has been for a LARGE proportion of his United career.

All those saying you don't understand football for critiquing him last season were proven to be talking out of their bottoms.

He really brings down the whole team. He's incredibly slow on the ball, often gets caught out of position, makes stupid mistakes and loses his man an incredibly high number of times.

He got away with it last year as Chelsea had replaced him with Bakoyoko. Remember all those "thank you Chelsea " posts after 2 fecking games? Bollocks to that.

We gave Chelsea 40 fecking million for Matic and people trust Mourinho to spend more? Their midfield is now Kante, Kovacic and Jorginho.

Incredibly poor signing. I was very annoyed we dropped Herrera for him, after Herrera had a great season.

Won't be dropped though.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

I'll say it again:

£40m for 6 reasonably good months. What a shockingly short-sighted signing that is living, breathing evidence of Mourinho's inability to change.

He is falling back on players he's familiar with because he has no idea how to move forward and that also goes for his signings. They're either flops, he doesn't play them or they're veterans that he feels 'comfortbale' with.

 

[PepsiCola]

I'll say it again:

£40m for 6 reasonably good months. What a shockingly short-sighted signing that is living, breathing evidence of Mourinho's inability to change.

He is falling back on players he's familiar with because he has no idea how to move forward and that also goes for his signings. They're either flops, he doesn't play them or they're veterans that he feels 'comfortbale' with.

We didn't even get 6 months.

A few weeks into the season and people were chatting the "looks like he needs a rest" bollocks.

 

[Patrick08]

I'll say it again:

£40m for 6 reasonably good months. What a shockingly short-sighted signing that is living, breathing evidence of Mourinho's inability to change.

He is falling back on players he's familiar with because he has no idea how to move forward and that also goes for his signings. They're either flops, he doesn't play them or they're veterans that he feels 'comfortbale' with.

I think he needs rest to regain some freshness. He just keeps on playing every game, with the attitude he has, but he's burnout and needs to be managed better, don't think he is finished but at this rate he soon will be if his playing time is not managed.

 

[ManUtd1999]

From Day One at United, Matic wasn't a factor offensively. He doesn't score goals and rarely assist them. For example, last year he scored 2 goals and assisted 3. In his entire EPL career he scored 5 and assisted 17.

However, in the first half of the last season, he did well defensively and made the midfield, overall, better. This is now gone, and he looks very ineffective. You really don't see any end product of him.

 

[ivaldo]

I think he needs rest to regain some freshness. He just keeps on playing every game, with the attitude he has, but he's burnout and needs to be managed better, don't think he is finished but at this rate he soon will be if his playing time is not managed.

This was debunked last season. People were saying he was being overplayed when I worked out he'd played something like 4 games in 25 days. It's not as if he's a high energy player.

 

[AltiUn]

Probably not doing Mourinho's case for signing 29 year olds much good.

 

[johanovic]

Mourinho has signed:
Eric Bailly - 30 million pounds
Matic - 40 million pounds
Zlatan - Free
Mkhitaryan - 27 million pounds
Pogba - 89 million pounds
Lindelof - 31 million pounds
Lukaku - 75 million pounds
Sanchez - Free but on a huge wage cost as result of that
Dalot - 19 million pounds
Fred - 52 million pounds

That comes to 363 million pounds. Compare that to Klopp at Liverpool:

Van Dijk-71 million pounds
Alison- 56 million pounds
Keita-54 million pounds
Fabinho-40 million pounds
Salah-38 million pounds
Mane-37 million pounds
Chamberlain-34 million pounds
Wijnaldum-25 million pounds
Shaqiri-13 million pounds
Robertson-8 million pounds
Grujic-6 million pounds
Karius-5 millon pounds
Klavan-4 million pounds

Liverpool spending is 383 million pounds. Is it not plain to see that we are getting far worse value for money when it comes to signing players?

 

[cyberman]

Mourinho has signed:
Eric Bailly - 30 million pounds
Matic - 40 million pounds
Zlatan - Free
Mkhitaryan - 27 million pounds
Pogba - 89 million pounds
Lindelof Sanchez - Free but on a huge wage cost as result of that
Dalot - 19 million pounds
Fred - 52 million pounds

That comes to 363 million pounds. Compare that to Klopp at Liverpool:

Van Dijk-71 million pounds
Alison- 56 million pounds
Keita-54 million pounds
Fabinho-40 million pounds
Salah-38 million pounds
Mane-37 million pounds
Chamberlain-34 million pounds
Wijnaldum-25 million pounds
Shaqiri-13 million pounds
Robertson-8 million pounds
Grujic-6 million pounds
Karius-5 millon pounds
Klavan-4 million pound
Liverpool spending is 383 million pounds. Is it not plain to see that we are getting far worse value for money when it comes to signing players?

Alison- 56 million pounds
Keita-54 million pounds
Fabinho-40 million pounds

Well..yeah

 

[Patrick08]

Probably not doing Mourinho's case for signing 29 year olds much good.

It's not about age, but fitness.

 

[AltiUn]

It's not about age, but fitness.

Sanchez is a similar age, plenty fit and has been equally rubbish.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

Popping in to say again he is complete crap and has been for a LARGE proportion of his United career.

All those saying you don't understand football for critiquing him last season were proven to be talking out of their bottoms.

He really brings down the whole team. He's incredibly slow on the ball, often gets caught out of position, makes stupid mistakes and loses his man an incredibly high number of times.

He got away with it last year as Chelsea had replaced him with Bakoyoko. Remember all those "thank you Chelsea " posts after 2 fecking games? Bollocks to that.

We gave Chelsea 40 fecking million for Matic and people trust Mourinho to spend more? Their midfield is now Kante, Kovacic and Jorginho.

Incredibly poor signing. I was very annoyed we dropped Herrera for him, after Herrera had a great season.

Won't be dropped though.

You can apply this to everyone in this team bar Shaw and De Gea.

 

[Patrick08]

This was debunked last season. People were saying he was being overplayed when I worked out he'd played something like 4 games in 25 days. It's not as if he's a high energy player.

He had a top season in chelsea, followed by a poor season there, then a top season under conte, then a mixed with us, now having a poor one. He's up and down in terms of performances and I think its related to his freshness and fitness. He may not be living clean off the field as well.

 

[Patrick08]

Sanchez is a similar age, plenty fit and has been equally rubbish.

Playing 343 under wenger, and a 451 under mourinho is start contrast, and like all players, he's not coping up. Our play is rubbish and doesn't help anyone.

 

[Jojo <3 Mou]

Matic has not been very good for awhile now. If I am Herrera, Perreira and Fred I am asking serious questions about what I'm not getting a go ahead of him. His distribution was downright terrible at time last night: A midfield Chris Smalling on the ball.

Was he really bad in this game?

In my opinion, he moved the ball really well from defense to attack. He kept the ball well for the most part, switched play well. The only area where he lacked was his final ball and he struggled with late midfield runs.

But, I always struggle to judge DMs. What is he doing wrong in so many person's opinion/in your opinion?

That aside, Herrera struggles in a midfield 2, Pereira has been a DM/deep CM for 3 months and Fred is adapting. Do we really think they are better than options than Matic?


Edit: grammar

 

[ash_86]

He wasn’t that good last year.

Oh come on. He was never this bad last year and i remember lot of good games where he protected the backline and we were laughing at Chelsea for selling him to us. He's much better than what we're seeing now.

 

[LoneStar]

Been very disappointing this season. People saying that he was the last season are wrong, he was nowhere near this bad.

Why does Jose not realise that this guy and Lukaku badly need a rest, be it for rests sake or for their own mental good?

These two are the reasons our build up is so slow, and we don't attack with any cohesion. Baffling why they are playing the full 90 every single match.

 

[golden_blunder]

He must have been running on adrenaline last season because this season he’s walking on empty

 

[Hawks2008]

He's one of Mourinho's guys like Lukaku. That means no matter how bad he is he will play because the manager feels that they have his back in the dressing room. This is not surprising, Mourinho always plays favourites.

 

[MadDogg]

What the deal with him? He was amazing most of last season and looks like a shadow now. Did the surgery have an impact on his game? Does he need rest?

He really wasn't.

He was amazing for the first three or four games. Then he dropped down to 'very good' for about a month. Then down to being only 'good' for another month or so. By the time we were into October (maybe it was November at the latest) everyone on here was already talking about how his form had fallen away and he needed a rest.

He just seems to have slowly but surely gotten worse the longer that he's been with us. Getting a few more rests here and there might help a bit, but I wouldn't expect it to be a magic fix.

 

[Jazz]

I'll say it again:

£40m for 6 reasonably good months. What a shockingly short-sighted signing that is living, breathing evidence of Mourinho's inability to change.

He is falling back on players he's familiar with because he has no idea how to move forward and that also goes for his signings. They're either flops, he doesn't play them or they're veterans that he feels 'comfortbale' with.

Which is why Woodward was 100% right not to give him any more funds. It wouldn't have a made a difference and would have left the club with old, unsellable players on high wages, plus the huge transfer fees that their clubs would have demanded. It's completely unreasonable and stupid to trust him with a fiver much less millions.

He wanted Willian because they get a long. He wanted the club to spend all that money, just because he wants someone else in the dressing room on his side. Complete madness.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Which is why Woodward was 100% right not to give him any more funds. It wouldn't have a made a difference and would have left the club with old, unsellable players on high wages, plus the huge transfer fees that their clubs would have demanded. It's completely unreasonable and stupid to trust him with a fiver much less millions.

He wanted Willian because they get a long. He wanted the club to spend all that money, just because he wants someone else in the dressing room on his side. Complete madness.

Hate Woodward but I agree. If Jose had been backed, we'd have spunked about £150m in the summer on 2-3 players aged 29 or over who more than likely wouldn't have made a HUGE difference. Meaning Jose would still be leaving, leaving us with even more fading players on huge wages, unable to be sold.

 

[Patrick08]

Hate Woodward but I agree. If Jose had been backed, we'd have spunked about £150m in the summer on 2-3 players aged 29 or over who more than likely wouldn't have made a HUGE difference. Meaning Jose would still be leaving, leaving us with even more fading players on huge wages, unable to be sold.

Which is why Woodward was 100% right not to give him any more funds. It wouldn't have a made a difference and would have left the club with old, unsellable players on high wages, plus the huge transfer fees that their clubs would have demanded. It's completely unreasonable and stupid to trust him with a fiver much less millions.

He wanted Willian because they get a long. He wanted the club to spend all that money, just because he wants someone else in the dressing room on his side. Complete madness.

Well, it does apply to willian, but I am not sure we can say it about Toby, but that's does not mean Jose can justify his overly cautious tactics on the pitch and our current form, we are a lot better than what we have seen so far. Our Cb contingent is not perfect and surely it could be improved and totally saying that he dint deserve any money because of the players age he was targeting is too extreme a view, on the other hand, targetting Willian for the price, was totally a good decision by Woodward.

 

[Ekeke]

Habib Beye (don't laugh, he's a superb pundit) nailed it last night on Canal+ when he said Matic's problem is that he slows things down pointlessly, he takes 3-4-5 touches to make a simple pass. Impossible to speed the play up with a midfielder like that

Exactly that. When Fellaini comes in and theres a noticeable difference in terms of the speed of our buildup play, you know the last guy was a problem.

 

[kouroux]

Exactly that. When Fellaini comes in and theres a noticeable difference in terms of the speed of our buildup play, you know the last guy was a problem.

So true. Fellaini is less skillful on the ball but he doesn't complicate things, 1-2 touch passing to get the ball flowing.

 

[Robbie Boy]

No idea why we bought a player that was clearly in massive decline

 

[Dante]

Probably not doing Mourinho's case for signing 29 year olds much good.

Jose's first choice was Dier. Matic was the backup.

 

[Mcking]

Matic's game when not being pressed is like:
get ready to receive the ball, look around to see if any opponent is around, take a touch to control the ball, take another touch to turn 45 degrees, take another touch to turn another 45 degrees, try to make a pass, decide against it, take another touch to turn to the other side, get ready for the pass, twist the body in a spiral manner, telegraph a left leg, then kick the ball. All these take close to 7 seconds.
If he's being pressed:
get ready to receive the ball, take a touch to control it, turn 90 degrees, take a weird stance, stretch out an arm towards the opponent, stretch out a left leg towards the ball, tilt the side of the body towards the opponent, swing half-heartedly at the ball, stretch out another arm towards another opponent, take another weird stance, manage to kick the ball just in time.
Seriously, it's infuriating. Why not receive the ball and just move it on?

 

[thegaffa]

Looking more like a schweinsteiger type situation where he is getting past his best more and more. Awaiting the manager fallout

 

[Devil may care]

The weak link in the midfield right now, too slow to react and got muscled off the ball more than once today, both Sigurdsson and Lookman had him.

 

[kouroux]

It hurts to see him like that. I bet he would be ace coming off the bench

 

[Ballache]

It hurts to see him like that. I bet he would be ace coming off the bench

I think we need to manage his playing time a bit more. He still has a lot to offer IMO but he played at the WC and had an injury at the beginning of the season.
I say play Ander for a bit and give Matic a bit of time to recover and improve physically.

 

[Ekeke]

He runs around trying to win the ball, but our opponents just pass it around him or hold off his challenges. He literally didnt successfully make a single tackle or interception all game. He tried and constantly failed. He couldnt even perform a professional foul correctly to break up play, Sigurdson just ignored him

 

[Andersons Dietician]

He infuriates me more than Valencia ever has. I imagine any player with energy would be a massive improvement over him currently, the doddiling is annoying but when he passes a ball there is no urgency on the pass, just hospital balls at walking speed except for 1 that he did fire in at Martial. I just can’t stand to watch him this moment and even when playing Fifa the near mention of his name stokes the fire.

 

[LoneStar]

Time to bench him for sometime as well. Play Herrera and Fred along with Pogba. I think those two can cover up for the defensive defencies of Pogba.

The guy really looks like he needs some time off. We should manage his play time better.

 

[MDFC Manager]

Becoming a massive concern now, because he won't be dropped.