Juan Mata

Had really high hopes for Mata when he signed, but I havent really been impressed with him at any point. Granted, LVG's system didnt do much for any of our attack minded players, but the more I saw him, the more I realised that Mata - like Kagawa - is a bit of a luxury player. Looks good when the team is playing well, but simply could not be relied upon to create something or impact a game when the chips were down, not in the way that the likes of Silva, Ozil or Hazard (when on form) could.

He is very weak, lacks pace, does not take players on, offers little defensively, and simply plays it safe.

Lack of impact is the key phrase for me when describing Mata. Lovely bloke and all, but I hope we get rid. A bit surprised that Everton are showing interest given they already have Barkley as their #10, but I would take the £25m at this point, although arguably his market value is a bit more than that.
 
TheNewEra said:
Can't keep someone in the club because its the goalkeepers mate.

Mata is good at set pieces and he is a good central player, still I'd rather get rid of Fellaini first.

I actually like Mata, but I also like to see the team winning the League more.
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Im not saying to keep him for that soul reason. On his day he is a class player, not when your asking him to play out on the wing.
 
As long as we get a decent fee for the lad ill not be to fussed I always knew Mhkitaryan was always going to be a direct replacement. With the type of fees being threw around at the minute id expect at least 30Mill for him.
 
Raoul said:
Juve, Dortmund, Athletico, Roma, Napoli, Valencia could use him. But, imo he'd be ideal for Spuds.
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How would he be ideal for Spurs? Spurs play fast and physical football. Mata would never be able to cope with the intensity of Pochettino's tactics.
 
It's really unfortunate that Mata cannot play multiple positions well enough to guarantee a starting role. If we could build around him he'd be great..but we cant and yeah I don't see hims ettling for a bench role. I'd rather have him than Rooney in the first team behind Ibra but Captain Fantastic has an iron grip on the club...
 
FreeHerrera said:
How would he be ideal for Spurs? Spurs play fast and physical football. Mata would never be able to cope with the intensity of Pochettino's tactics.
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I can personally see him at Roma, but not at the others.

I think he'd want to stay in the Premiership, but he'd be needed at a top 6 team.

Arsenal already have Ozil, Chelsea would be ideal but we know the history, City actually a good match but again Rivals.

It's a hard one, where does he go?
 
TheNewEra said:
Trying to think of a destination for Mata in football. I can see a club like Roma being a well suited team for his skillset but they're stacked for midfielders.
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They just lost their best midfielders (Pjanic).
 
FreeHerrera said:
They just lost their best midfielders (Pjanic).
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Interesting, I have not really followed much in world football this year, maybe Roma is a good place for him.

Great city, great culture, top club too.
 
Paolo Di Canio said:
Im not saying to keep him for that soul reason. On his day he is a class player, not when your asking him to play out on the wing.
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Rumours are we won't be playing with a proper 10, due to the 433. Not to add if we do play with a CAM, Mickey is better.
 
Selling him to premier league club could give better value and if Everton is interested then why not sell him now.
 
Rado_N said:
The fundamental difference is that Everton are demanding top money for a player they want to keep, whereas if Mata leaves it's because United want him off the wage bill. The leverage is all the buyers, rather than the sellers as with Stones.

People always ignore this when moaning about the fees we get for outgoing players.

The one time we sold a player without it being our wish we got a world record fee for him.
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Let's not forget the second time even our fax machine protested.
 
Dortmund will be perfect for him. He'll play for a manager that'll get the best out of him, while he could be that rare player that will be good enough for Dortmund, while not being enough to attract the interest of Bayern, RM, Barca, PSG etc. He seems like the romantic type so I reckon at this age he'll want to start building a legacy at one of the bigger clubs in Europe.

Sell for 20m with first option on Weigl/Dembele?
 
RedStarUnited said:
Why cant the likes of Fellaini be sold first...
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As life isn't fair.

Why do people have to post about other players being sold on a thread about Mata being sold. It matters not whom we want sold, if the club have received a bid of a level that they would consider selling a player for, then they're obviously not going to say, oh we'd rather sell a,b or c player to you first.
 
Can we keep mata because he's such a really nice guy and I love him so much. We don't deserve him
 
sunama said:
Just to clarify, Mata is not very productive at all.
Last season he scored 6 goals + 5 assists. (For comparison, 18 yr old Rashford scored 7 goals in a 33% of appearances as Mata made).
That's embarrassing. Not Falcao/Memphis levels of embarrassing, but pretty bad.
Mata himself would agree that he had a very poor season.

He may make a few nice passes here and there.
He may be a nice guy.
He may even write a nice blog.
But productive on the pitch? I don't think so.

IMO, Mata's level is a team which is around 5th-8th. LVG's MUFC did fit that category. Everton also fit that category. But he just isn't good enough to play for Jose's MUFC.
I think Everton would be his correct level.



Actually. Here's a thought.
A slow footballer, with a weak physical build, but buckets of skill on the ball.
In Italy, for a team like Juve, he'd be dynamite and he'll get to compete in the CL.
What do you guys think?
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Too drunk to argue properly but:

As you said, even Mata would agree that last season was poor on his part. So why limit the stats to just last season?

I believe (though I may be wrong) he is our second top scorer since he arrived at the club? That indicates productivity to me, especially as he arrived in a team that we all agree struggled for the sort of attacking impetus that would benefit him.
 
Raoul said:
I agree with this. He's a quality player and the idea that Mourinho didn't like him was overplayed imo. He thought Oscar tracked back more than Mata which is fair enough, but for all we know he may see Juan as an asset in this squad. I'd rather Mourinho focus on offloading the likes of Young, Fellaini, Jones et al.
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It's not the workrate, but the defensive quality is the problem. With Mata, even if he is there and tackles, the chance of the opponent came out with the ball still high! Remember the goal vs Mid...land where Mata went tackling and somehow the other team player just still have the ball like Mata was not there.

7:23 in the video
 
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MounchesterUtd said:
Dortmund will be perfect for him. He'll play for a manager that'll get the best out of him, while he could be that rare player that will be good enough for Dortmund, while not being enough to attract the interest of Bayern, RM, Barca, PSG etc. He seems like the romantic type so I reckon at this age he'll want to start building a legacy at one of the bigger clubs in Europe.

Sell for 20m with first option on Weigl/Dembele?
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Nah, sell him to Juve with first option on Dybala. We need a feeder club in Italy too.
 
Juan Mata is one of the symbols of our transfer failings post Sir Alex retirement where we have signed players without properly assessing their suitability to the team and set them for failures by either altering their game too much for eg Herrara or playing them in positions they are not comfortable with eg Schneiderlin he is defensive minded CM not DM.

Mata signing was a panic buy approved by out of depth manager in attempt to convince concerned and skeptical fan base of his relevance. Mata would always produce good numbers if a team is build around him but he lacks in too many areas to be the main man for team with title aspirations, So if we are able to recoup substantial amount of his transfer fee then it would be in our interest to sell him this season as his value would only depreciate from here on.
 
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Mata is a strange player. He has played well for United but when you watch him play it's hard to figure out what he's good at. He's slow and weak on the ball. He isn't particularly brilliant creatively or lethal in front of goal. He doesn't go past players and is poor defensively.

He has really good technique and is a good passer of the ball. He's intelligent, has a great attitude and seems a really nice guy. But for £37m he should be the creative fulcrum of the team and he never will be. Compare him to Ozil, Silva, De Bruyne, Hazard, etc. He isn't on that level.

I would be amazed if he's still at United when the season starts. He isn't a Mourinho type player. I would expect Jose to value someone like Lingard as a better squad player.

After Mkhitaryan, I can see another 2-3 coming in and 3 or 4 out. Mata is very likely to be in the "out" category.
 
I'd keep him as a squad player. Can't be a consistent starter (still started the most games) and not good enough to build anything around him. He still is productive, so wouldn't mind having him as an option.
 
I'd love him to join us. Would mean Barkley could move back to CM and Lukaku would finally have a quality AM to feed off (assuming he stayed).
 
I'd be selling half a dozen attackers before even considering getting rid of Mata (Rooney, Young, Fellaini, Depay, Lingard, Januzaj etc).
 
SilentWitness said:
I'd love him to join us. Would mean Barkley could move back to CM and Lukaku would finally have a quality AM to feed off (assuming he stayed).
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Don't you think Barkley would be a bit of a defensive liability and ruin the balance of the midfield if he played there regularly?
 
RedElf said:
Mata for Stones plus cash, how does that grab you?
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I'd rather take the 50m for Stones and buy Mata on the cheap which usually happens when United sell players. ;)

CM10 said:
Don't you think Barkley would be a bit of a defensive liability and ruin the balance of the midfield if he played there regularly?
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He's too inconsistent with through balls to play at AM and his best attribute is box-to-box driving runs. His defensive game has suffered a bit due to him playing at AM but when he first began playing it wasn't an issue at all.
 
Mata is definitely a classy player, but he sometimes would also slows down our attack move, and may not be ideal player for Mourinho.
 
I don't care who goes first but Mata has to be one of the players out. Just not good enough for a championship winning side and don't see the point of him being a bench player at this age. Leave that for Lingard.
 
We have to get at least £30m for him or its no way Jose. He along with Schneiderlin are the only players we'd consider selling that can fetch decent fees.
 
I think there's a good chance he'll leave because he'll be no where near the starting 11. But has this Everton rumour got any credibility at all? It doesn't seem to.

I'd be surprised if we got more than £20m for him for two reasons, he's not that good and his wages are sky high.
 
I will carry him to Goodison Park myself for £25m. Lovely bloke but a very ineffective footballer. If i were on a beach somewhere in Brazil playing Futsal I would be quite happy to have him (and Herrera) on my side but we are not. We are playing in the most physically demanding league in the world and he will never hit the heights we need
 
If we are to sell him, I'd naturally sell to whoever offers the most money. But if we can use a Mata swap to get Pogba, I'd be all for it.
 
gajender said:
Juan Mata is one of the symbols of our transfer failings post Sir Alex retirement ...
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Come on.. he's not even close to a symbol of transfer failing. That symbol belongs to Fellaini. Mata could be better, yes definitely. I think everyone should get a fresh start under Mourinho though, it's difficult to judge players when they play under Moyes and LVG. Only person that should go is Rooney, as SAF tried to get rid and you read all the threads now and it's very clear that Rooney does not excel in any position but people try to shoehorn him in because he's Rooney and no manager has dared to drop him continuously.
 
chb23 said:
Come on.. he's not even close to a symbol of transfer failing. That symbol belongs to Fellaini. Mata could be better, yes definitely. I think everyone should get a fresh start under Mourinho though, it's difficult to judge players when they play under Moyes and LVG. Only person that should go is Rooney, as SAF tried to get rid and you read all the threads now and it's very clear that Rooney does not excel in any position but people try to shoehorn him in because he's Rooney and no manager has dared to drop him continuously.
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I have to agree with the original poster. It's not about the quality of the player but the plan of how to use them. Mata and Fellaini summed up the Moyes era. Under Fergie there was a purpose to every signing. Even if the player ended up not being good enough you could see there was a plan for how each player would be used.

Mourinho and Guardiola's signings show the style of play each manager plans on implementing. Moyes had no plan at all. What style of play was he going for with Mata and Fellaini?
 
I really like Mata. Just about the only downside I saw about bringing Jose in was the end of Mata.

Will miss him if he goes, hope he moves to Spain
 
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