Nemanja Matic image 31

Nemanja Matic Serbia flag

2019-20 Performances

View full 2019-20 profile

5.9 Season Average Rating
Appearances
34
Goals
1
Assists
3
Yellow cards
4
Red cards
1
Status
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Winmove said:
He made us more compact and difficult to break down just by being there. I don't care about his misplaced pass since it doesn't turn into anything , when Pogba lose possession it always turn into goal scoring chances for opposition.
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:lol:
 
Cassidy said:
I don’t believe he did. As a team we sat back more and kept out shape
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Most of the arguments for playing Matic tonight against Astana are bad. For example: "we must play him because we're paying him (lots of money)", and "give him a runout". But at last someone makes an argument for playing Matic based on his skillset and playing style, but it's a bad one, not backed up by any data or examples.

Winmove said:
He made us more compact and difficult to break down just by being there. I don't care about his misplaced pass since it doesn't turn into anything , when Pogba lose possession it always turn into goal scoring chances for opposition.
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How about: Matic's laconic defending makes it easier to score goals against us, and harder for us to attack.

easier to score goals against us - I have a few examples of this. a) Matic losing possession in a dangerous place and opposition quickly scoring against us, and b) Matic not closing a player down, allowing him to shoot and score.

harder for us to attack - when playing with a CDM who passes the ball forward, or runs forward with it (like Garner), our younger players know the game plan. When, instead, one of our team constantly pass back to the centre backs, our young players are confused. I think this is what Cassidy means by
As a team we sat back more and kept out shape
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If we're going to defend, the best place to defend is in the opposition's half, certainly when they lack a fast striker, but we have a fast CB (like Tuanzebe) it seems unlikely they'll score on the break. In contrast, when we let them attack, they always seem to score a soft goal when we lose concentration!
 
Interesting choice as captain tonight. It’s a while since he’s really played well and I assumed he is unlikely to be here next year. But the main thing he does offer is experience which might be useful when we’re playing a lot of kids.
 
Man Utd 1:0 Astana
Where’s the rifle?

Jesus. That was actually quite sad to watch.
 
He’s done. It’s so ponderous with him in the middle of the park and others around him seem to play worse.
 
Did well today. The game was kinda slow and worked in his favor though.
 
His use of the ball is horrific. If you played Jones as a centre midfielder you'd get as much as Matic offers.
 
Better than usual, he at least was useful in winning the ball back. On the ball though, very limited.
 
Nothing wrong with his performance tonight, we will need an experienced midfielder for the Europa league games and he fits that role well.

The whole team was playing slow so there's not much he could have done (I'm a Matic apologiser tonight)
 
I don’t like his demeanour in the interview about the young players. He should have bigged them up more instead of being a maudlin bastard
 
Adam-Utd said:
Looked like a testimonial performance for a lot of it. Just so immobile and everything need a 4/5 touches.

Hello nemanja
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Ha. Well I criticised him a lot last game. Here, I thought he dominated the game.

That said, I don't think anyone had a really good game so there wasn't much competition.
 
Crustanoid said:
I don’t like his demeanour in the interview about the young players. He should have bigged them up more instead of being a maudlin bastard
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Probably cos they are a big threat to him. Need to go end of the season but id only play him Europa League / cup games anyway (pogba, fred and McT should be ahead of him for league games)
 
Yagami said:
Ha. Well I criticised him a lot last game. Here, I thought he dominated the game.

That said, I don't think anyone had a really good game so there wasn't much competition.
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Honestly what did he really do? Just sat there and recycled possession and made a few tackles the odd occasion they tried to go forward. Every pass is safe and sideways, there’s a reason we really struggle to break teams down.
 
I still don't understand why we signed him. He was clearly the weakest link in the Chelsea squad of 2015.
 
Looks physically shot but he was better on the ball than Fred. Which isn’t difficult.
 
Adam-Utd said:
Honestly what did he really do? Just sat there and recycled possession and made a few tackles the odd occasion they tried to go forward. Every pass is safe and sideways, there’s a reason we really struggle to break teams down.
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I thought he was a big help in us having so much of the possession with not only winning the ball back, but his calmness and ability to play out of pressure. He played some nice Carrick-esque passes between the lines that our forwards didn't capitalise on, too. I wouldn't say he's in the team to split defences open so I'm not too harsh on him there.

So, yeah, I thought he did his job well, and because everyone else was rather mediocre rather than him being that good, I thought he was our best player tonight.
 
Was decent in recycling possession and it's good that he got some more minutes. He and Fred aren't exactly the most creative pairing in the world but tonight was just about getting them minutes.
 
Why pass to a player quickly when you can dribble towards them then pass it from 2 yards away?
 
I didn’t see the game so all of the different replies are confusing.
 
Irwin99 said:
Was decent in recycling possession and it's good that he got some more minutes. He and Fred aren't exactly the most creative pairing in the world but tonight was just about getting them minutes.
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I agree. They weren't helped being paired both being left footed either. I thought Matic did well tonight and nowhere near worthy of the abuse he's getting on here.
 
Thought Matić played very well tonight. He used his experience and intelligence to good effect. He was always there to snuff out the danger every time Astana threatened to counter attack. Job done.
 
Here's some Opta stats from United's app for Matic...because people say he's slow and immobile immediately makes Matic a complete waste of time. Also, Matic was captain today.

Thought he did well by recycling the ball, passing it between lines usually to his left and getting the ball wide to create width against a parked bus and was positioned well inside the opponents half. Assured on the ball. He and Fred did well considering they were the highest influencers in the match. If you dominate a match, you'll probably win the midfield and play a very functional role. They did that today.

Influence: 96% - second to Fred (means they were involved throughout the match through their actions)
Shooting: N/A - deepest CM and registered no shots
Attacking: N/A - again, deepest CM so he registered zero touches in opponent's box, chances created, big chances created, assists, through-balls, successful through-balls
Passing: 111 successful pass out of 120 - 93%
Final Third Passing: 43 successful final third passes out of 48 - 90%
Possession: Long (4 - 3%), Left (28 - 18%), Right (6 - 4%), Short (116 - 75%) = 154 successful total passes
Defending: Tackles won (0/0), Duels won (6/8), Aerial duels won (2/2), Interceptions won (1/1)
 
Thought he did alright, hence why I'm not gonna get too excited about Greenwood or Gomes' performances cos if Matic looks competent you really know the opposition are a shower of shite
 
acnumber9 said:
Looks physically shot but he was better on the ball than Fred. Which isn’t difficult.
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Was he? He did the same as Fred, but it just took another 3 touches to achieve it.
 
I'm unsure why people think he played well.
No urgency with the ball, slow sideways passing. He had a lot of the ball along with Fred and they both were not risky or adventurous enough with their passing
 
He’s slow and laborious but he’s industrial in that holding role. I can type for days about how many things he’s shit at, but instead I’ll just highlight what he’s good at. Making safe decisions. In a busting young team, you need that one guy to continuously make the boring and cautious decisions at times.

Mind you this is really clutching at straws
 
Some over critical views. His legs have gone,that much is clear. This lead to some poor moments where he ended up on his backside when trying to chase players down.

However, on the ball he was by far our most assured player, made good decisions, nice passes between the lines and to our overlapping fullbacks.

If he could be left to play a Carrick type role then he'd be mostly fine. Covering large spaces isn't his game anymore. Perhaps a combo of him and McTominay would be better than with Fred for obvious reasons.
 
Sylar said:
Probably cos they are a big threat to him. Need to go end of the season but id only play him Europa League / cup games anyway (pogba, fred and McT should be ahead of him for league games)
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Unfair this. The only one that is a threat to Matic is McTominay and he's heaped massive praise on Scott multiple times.
 
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