On Sunday, as Chelsea laboured towards victory over Hull and limped ever closer to the Premier League title. Liverpool and Anfield was playing host to the ‘Juan Mata Show,’ as the 26-year-old Manchester United midfielder was tormenting their dearest rivals.
With home draws against Burnley and Southampton in the not so distant past, Mourinho’s men have lost all the early season flair which differentiated them from any other Jose side.
It is over a year since Mata departed Stamford Bridge for Old Trafford. Are Chelsea beginning to miss the mercurial midfielder?
The strangest thing about Juan Mata’s masterclass on Merseyside, was the fact that it came out of nowhere. van Gaal, similar to Moyes and Mourinho before him, did not trust the Spanish midfielder. He will trust him now.
When Mourinho dispensed of Mata’s services in January 2014, it was a move met with almost complete confusion. The two-time Player of the Season at the Bridge was now seen as surplus to requirements.
His main strengths have always been his technical abilities as opposed to his physical prowess, his work-rate has always been questioned, something Mourinho could not facilitate.
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Instead, the Chelsea midfield is packed with players who are happy to, coining an English phrase ‘Put a shift in.’ Even Willian, has transformed himself from a typical Brazillian attacker, to one that is willing to curtail his own attacking tendencies in order for the team to succeed.
Juan Mata’s Manchester United career has hardly been an unmitigated success. David Moyes did not manage to fit him into his United side. van Gaal has also struggled, but as the Dutchman has continuously searched for the perfect midfield blend, he may have stumbled across it. His last two performances, against Tottenham and Liverpool, have, almost definitely, been their best showings of the season.
Chelsea’s early season form, seemed to perfectly vindicate their manager’s decision. Nemanja Matic has established himself as one of the world’s great defensive-midfielders and early season Cesc Fabregas was unquestionably the best footballer plying his trade in the country.
But as winter turned to spring, Mourinho’s men have begun to stumble.
Following a humiliating defeat to lowly Bradford City in the FA Cup, Chelsea were eliminated from Europe by 10 man PSG. Fortunately for the Blues, their early season form seems to have done enough to secure them the league, but their 2015 has hardly been one to excite fans and perhaps more importantly, the owner.
Fabregas has become the centre of recent criticism from his own fans. His early season form now seems a distant memory. Where once he was dynamic, he is now becoming static.
Chelsea are the massive odds-on-favourite, to win the title come May, maybe earlier. But it is of no doubt, that for the first time since he’s left, they will have been looking at the magnificent Mata and wishing him to still be in the blue of Chelsea.
Mata’s career was in danger of tailing off. A relic of the tiki-taka era. His performance on Sunday, proves he still has a long future in the English game.
Chelsea may still come to regret that fateful day in January, 2014.
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