I tried to be nice about Matic last season because one thing you can't say is that he's invisible or doesnt work hard. He does work hard. He did last season too.
But he's not a very good protector of the back 4.
Where he works hard is, making himself available to receive the pass, running with the ball, making passes. Now obviously he does it in a slow pace and rarely ever creative way. And thats extremely symptomatic of Mourinho's style since he got here. Like we're attempting to bore our opponents to death. But yeah, Matic has been active, got on the ball and passed it sideways a lot. He also made some tackles and interceptions. Not a lot considering his position but more than our other CM options other than Ander. So all in all, as a package and as a CM he's okay. He's active, he works hard. But he's neither a specialist defensively nor offensively. He's a mixed bag.
When it comes to actually marshaling the dangerous space between our midfield and defense, he often went missing last season. He's not that great at positioning himself to pressure players around the edge of the box where the defenders need help. And of course, having Pogba doing very light work defensively next to him didnt help him there.
We had 11.5 shots against us per game last season. Thats the 7th least. Not particularly impressive for a team that came 2nd in the league and averaging at least 1 more than all the other top clubs. De Gea made 7th most saves of any keeper - almost 1 more per game than the keepers at the other top teams, and Smalling made joint 9th most shots blocked per game out of all the CBs in the league last season. Averaging 1 shot blocked per game Smalling made the most of any CB at one of the top sides last season. In fact looking down the list, Jones appears before any CB from City, Chelsea, Spurs or Liverpool. Eventually Christensen averaging 0.6 per game appears as joint 39th most shots blocked on average and Lindelof is joint with him.
So we have a CB who is one of the best at blocking shots so the keeper doesnt have to deal with it and still De Gea is often called into action and has to save us. 2 more of our CBs average as many or more shots blocked than all of our rivals for 1st or 2nd place in the league.
Now obviously we had a problem with our fullbacks. Players got in behind Young for fun - even though statistically he made plenty of interceptions and tackles. They knew they could get in behind him and hurt us and they did. But its not just that 1 area where all shots came from. Plenty of those shots came from the middle of the goal. Because Matic, while good overall wasnt doing a great job as a DM. He wasn't minimalising the exposure to our CBs and goalkeeper. Most of his good work was getting on the ball and playing it around.
Honestly I've seen Ander track back sensing danger and seeing it off more times than I see Matic do that. He also tends to win the ball more. Matic is far more physical and strong - maybe Ander is a little lightweight at times. But I wholeheartedly believe that Ander does a better job seeing off danger between defense and midfield. And if my life was on the line and I had to pick 1 player to play a match in that DM position and stop the opponent scoring, I'd pick Ander because I know he'd read the game the best and snuff it out.
Sometimes Ander's passing is uninspired, but Matic's isnt much better. Fellaini has probably done the best of them in terms of moving the ball quickly in recent times. But for me the most important part of playing a DM in front of the defense is to protect it. If you want a deep lying playmaker, thats something different and neither Matic, nor Fellaini, nor Ander fit that mould. But thats the role where passing comes first.
