Juan Mata did not score on Sunday. In itself, that should almost count as breaking news. The Spaniard had delivered eight goals in his previous 10 Premier League starts. It was a return most strikers would be delighted to call their own. It would have made this particular attacking midfielder the first name on the teamsheet at many a club.
At Manchester United, it rendered his the first name written among the substitutes. Or it did when Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao were all available together. Rooney’s red card against West Ham allowed him a reprieve and a return against Everton. Mata marked it with an assist for Angel di Maria’s opener.
That is Mata; most things he touches turns to goal. And yet, somehow, it does not seem to be enough. In the last 14 months, he has been dropped by Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal. David Moyes lacked the boldness of the superstar managers. Instead, he shunted Mata out to the flanks and placed him in his tactical straitjacket whenever Rooney and Van Persie were both fit. That was his version of a vote of no confidence.
Once again, Mata looks the odd man out this season. This curiously underappreciated, wonderfully prolific player seems the easiest man to omit. He is not the captain – a status which, Van Gaal has admitted, grants Rooney "privileges", even if licence to boot Stewart Downing up in the air may not be among them. Nor did he skipper the manager’s Netherlands team, unlike Van Persie, and have two years of training in Van Gaal’s much-vaunted philosophy. He was the marquee signing as recently as January. Now that mantle rests with Falcao and the magnificent Di Maria. He is yesterday’s news in an era of short-termism.
Mata is not one of the United untouchables. He was demoted, though Falcao is neither fully fit nor razor sharp, Van Persie is not in the form he displayed during his golden run between 2011 and 2013 and Van Gaal suggested he was not happy with Rooney’s efforts. So instead he moved the Englishman into a deeper role. Mata’s role. He seems one step away from being branded a misfit, yet he has done little wrong.
Indeed, he has done much right. He is dogged by the perception that he is a luxury player but his last full season of first-team football, in 2012-13 at Chelsea, he was one of the best four players in England. Two of the others, Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez, are now among the most expensive footballers of all the time. The fourth is Van Persie. He was the Premier League’s top scorer then but Mata’s efforts in all competitions brought 20 goals and a further 25 assists. Someone that productive is no indulgence. His are telling touches, not superfluous flicks and tricks.
The theory is that he is too nice, the Red Devil without the devilish streak that many of United’s greats, whether Eric Cantona, Roy Keane or Paul Scholes, have possessed. Mata is indeed absurdly nice. So much so that, having been displaced by Di Maria as the club’s record signing, he was so happy to take second billing to the Argentine that he served as his interpreter for one post-match interview. Mata being Mata, he did so uncomplainingly. Far from being a George Best-style hell-raiser, this is a man who wrote a blog about a pleasant trip to Chester Cathedral.
But perhaps ruthlessness is camouflaged by amiable nature and the sense he rambles, rather than runs, around the pitch. Indeed, maybe that is precisely how he finds room. He doesn’t sprint into space as much as wander there with the air of one who might stop for a coffee if the opportunity arises.
The accusation is that Mata slows United down too much, that he lacks the urgency many of their finest teams have exhibited and which Di Maria demonstrates with every appearance. Yet he is not alone in lacking pace. Nor, too, is he the only player whose defensive contribution can be criticised.
Certainly that did not endear him to Mourinho. But Chelsea might be champions now if they had kept Mata; he was sold so Oscar could be the No.10 but the Brazilian promptly lost form and only scored two league goals in the final four months of the campaign.
At United, he played terrifically in the 4-0 win over QPR and found himself on the bench the following week. No wonder many expect him to be the fall guy, firstly when Rooney returns from suspension in November and then perhaps in the January transfer window. Yet it seems unjust. A misunderstood maestro deserves better.
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