Amidst rumours of a possible sale in January, Jose Mourinho has confirmed that Juan Mata remains part of his plans and that the Spaniard cannot get game time because of the form of other players. Eden Hazard, Oscar, and Willian have all been stunning in recent weeks.
Mata, who has won Chelsea’s Player of the Year award for the last two seasons, has been on the bench in the last two matches. Mourinho says that Mata’s absence in the last two matches should not be linked with his reaction to being substituted in the 3-0 win over Southampton.
The same has been the case with Andre Schurrle, who did well in the 3-2 defeat against Stoke by scoring both our goals. According to Sky Sports, Mourinho said:
“The others (Oscar, Willian, Eden Hazard), they are playing very well and the team is playing very well.
“But we need other players. If the game goes on being 0-0 then Mata is coming into the game as he is a fantastic player. But the game went into another direction, we scored and then after that my brain worked in another way.
“But we need them. We need Mata, we need (Andre) Schurrle, we need these players as we cannot do it with three.
“Maybe in February maybe some are not in the best form and Juan is coming at the top of his game.”
This may be a plausible explanation from Mourinho, but Mata will undoubtedly be bemused by it. After all, he has been Chelsea’s best player by some distance in the last two seasons. He has so far been very professional about the situation, but his frustration seems to be growing by the day.
Several bookmakers have been offering odds of around 2/1 for Mata to join PSG in January.
The World Cup 2014 changes the dynamic of the situation entirely, as Mata would want to be part of the starting line-up ahead of the likes of David Silva. At 25 years of age, he is at the peak of his career. Will he accept Mourinho’s words and wait until February for his next chance?
i can see dat most of de chelsea fans across the globe doesnt know futbol insyd,mata de player u r critising rytnow was last season a player who has provided many assisst than other player in europe and nt even then tym real madrid’s mersut ozil and even barcelona’s xavi and iniesta with 55 assisst in all competitions 4ur chelsea fc and scored 20 goals in all competition as well and was also epl top assissts jst last season , so ma luvly chelsea fans why hav u forgotten all these so soon.so rytnow wats de mata wif mourinho rytnow whiles chelsea hav nt been able to score from set-pieces this season all bcos mata is not there to deliver his gud crossings and free kicks.he was the one who made de struggling fernando torres had his fantastic season 4ur so far 4ur chelsea jst a season ago by scoring 23 goals in all competition.so mourinho jst hav to realize dat chelsea is lacking sumfin special without juan dis season jst see our struggling strikers dis season he could hav done de job 4ur simple if he is getting more playing tym dis season.
Oscar might be in a good form but if you watch him closely he never tries pass the ball to Torres and opts to pass it to Willian instead where ever he is I don’t see a chance for Torres to score. Mata should replace Oscar and we can’ expect Torres and Mata both to score!
I’d say none of the midfielders pass (often) to Torres. Someone needs to be told of the Drog-Lamps combination.
wit mata chel6 r setle