A discard at Chelsea, even though he was one of the fan favourites and had won player of the season awards on consecutive occasion at the club, the doors seemed to be closing for Juan Mata until a certain David Moyes brought him into Manchester United. That didn’t go off too well either and many believed that Mata’s stay in the Premier League was coming to an end.
Juan Mata though is made of sterner stuff than giving it all up, his transformation started under Louis van Gaal and his best performance last season came against Liverpool where he scored a couple of cracking goals, one thanks to a brilliant run while another was an out of this world finish.
Mata’s star is shining at the moment for the club, he is one of the best players in the league and always had the talent but never got a chance to showcase it for the Red of Manchester under Moyes. Van Gaal however, is getting the best out of the Spanish ace even though he is not playing in a role which is familiar to him.
In the last game against Wolfsburg in the Champions League, Mata was the star of the show as United came from a goal behind to defeat the German club. According to Squawka.com, Mata finished the game with 98% pass accuracy, an unbelievable statistic. He even created five chances for the team and three shots on goal, he even scored one and assisted the other goal for United.
Juan Mata’s game by numbers vs. Wolfsburg: 98% pass accuracy 5 chances created 3 shots 1 goal 1 magical assist pic.twitter.com/Mfa4KZVBBQ
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) September 30, 2015
Mata though has been playing out of his skin since the start of the season and currently has four goals and four assist to his name for the team. From the stats on Whoscored.com, Mata has a passing percentage of 90.7 in all competitions this season and is one of the highest in the league from all positions.
He also averages 2.4 shots per game from all the competitions so far, he certainly is the best performing Manchester United player with a rating of 7.42 from the Premier League games this season but is he the best midfielder in the league?
Unfortunately for him and Manchester United fans, Mata isn’t the best midfielder in the league and by a long shot. There are a ton of other players who are doing more for their club and pushing them higher up, Yaya Toure, Ross Barkley, Dimitri Payet, Riyad Mahrez and even David Silva have done a lot more than Juan Mata have this season.
The on shining light for Mata would be the fact that he is getting better as the games go by and come the end of the season, he could be giving United a lot more and pushing them in the right direction.