Juan Mata is playing in the form of his life after having found his feet at Manchester United and being revamped into the attacking threat that he really was at Chelsea. Louis van Gaal has certainly turned Mata’s career around and the big money signing seems to have finally found a home after his departure from Chelsea.
Another big money signing who hasn’t enjoyed the same kind of form and adulation is Mesut Ozil; the German started his Arsenal career on fire but has petered out in the last season or so. He is often criticized as not being able to match his form from Real Madrid, but he still gets the job done most of the time, he is a World Cup winner after all.
We compare the two players this season and find out just who has had a better season so far in the Premier League.
Spain vs. Germany
We would be looking at the per game average stats from Squawka.com when comparing both the players.
While Ozil has played one game fewer than Mata this season, it is the German who provides more attacking passes to his team. Ozil averages 32 forward passes per game for Arsenal while Mata only provides 24 forward passes per game in the Red of Manchester United.
However, both players have the same pass completion rate of 90% per game, which is one of the highest in the Premier League. What they do with the passes is also extremely important, Ozil provides an average of 4.3 key passes per game for Arsenal while Mata only provides 1.6 key passes per game for Manchester United.
It is a similar story when it comes to chances created per game, although Mata is slightly better than the stat for average passes, the Spaniard averages 2 chances made per game while Ozil averages more than double that with 4.8 chances created per game.
Taking on the defence and beating them is another thing which both these players like to do and there is no separating them with both of them averages a success rate of 50% in take-ons per game this season.
When it comes to creating assists, there again isn’t much to separate them, Ozil averages around 0.5 assists per game while Mata averages 0.43 assists per game. There really isn’t much to separate these players, while Mata might be scoring a few goals more than Ozil, the German provides a lot more to his team in the attacking phase than Mata and that should help people get off his back as both players look ahead to winning with their teams as they face each other in the Premier League.