Assessing the Juan Mata situation at Chelsea

Juan Mata

When a new manager joins the club, changes are natural. But no one saw this happening. Chelsea’s best player of the season for the last two years running and now one of the regulars on the Chelsea bench.

At first, Juan Mata didn’t seem too disturbed sitting on the bench. Instead, he came out and said that because of the intense competition in each position in the squad, he would fight for his place like everyone else by impressing Mourinho. But so many appearances coming off the bench gave Juan Mata very little time to make an impact. In over 800 minutes of Premier League football this season, Mata has managed 2 assists and no goals which just goes to show the cutting edge he has lost this season because of being on the bench for too long.

The situation worsened on New Year’s day when Chelsea were away at Saint Mary’s. Juan Mata started that game but was substituted just 7 minutes into the second half. While making his way to the dugout he threw his arms in the air and appeared to be complaining to one of Chelsea’s assistant managers as to why was he subbed off so so early, clearly suggesting he’d had enough. The game was 0-0 at the time, and it was Oscar who was sent on as a replacement for Mata. The game ended 0-3 with Oscar being involved in all three goals (1 goal, 2 assists, 1 yellow card and 1 dive).

Since then Juan Mata hasn’t played a single second of football on the pitch, putting huge question marks on his future at Chelsea. His exit became even more evident when Manchester United “reportedly” made a £37 million bid for him just a couple of days back and Chelsea “reportedly” agreed to the deal.

Just last night Chelsea bought Mohammed Salah from FC Basel for an estimated £11 million with quite a few regarding him as Mata’s replacement (on the bench?). The situation further escalated when Wayne Rooney and Phil Neville followed Juan Mata’s official Twitter account last night. If you’ll recollect, a few months back Sandro, Coutinho and Paulinho followed Willian on Twitter. We all know how that ended!

Looking at it from Mata’s perspective, he’s a young player and would want to be playing every minute of football his club plays, and that hasn’t happened at Chelsea this season. What remains to be seen is what Jose Mourinho says in his press conference in a few hours from now and if Mata will play any part in Sunday’s FA Cup game against Stoke City. As a Chelsea fan, it will hurt me to see him leave and even more if he joins Manchester United who I hate through and through. We are still in the FA Cup and Champions League adding to the already weekend games we play in the Premier League which means there will be a cluster of games starting soon and Mourinho certainly won’t be playing the same starting XI in each game. This is where players like Demba Ba, Andre Schürrle, Ashley Cole, Michael Essien, Mohammed Salah and more importantly Juan Mata come in.

Please don’t leave, Juan Mata! It will be a very sad day for Chelsea fans if you leave, so please don’t let it get that far