Mata as our #10

Pexbo

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I'll be honest, I've said for a long time that I don't consider it his best position. I think his lack of physique means he's better coming across the lines from wide and picking up pockets of space than trying to find space to play around the centrebacks and defensive midfielders.

He was excellent last night though and it seems Van Gaal thinks he has stumbled across something:

Martial has excelled as a winger of late and Van Gaal suggested he will stay there, just as Rooney will remain his main striker and Juan Mata his No. 10.

"He likes to play in a striker's position more than where he is now playing but when he plays like this I am not changing," he added. "Same as Rooney, same as Mata, I am not changing.
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Is it a case of one swallow making a summer or do you expect him to put in more good performances from that role?

We're away to Chelsea on Sunday who will likely have Mikel, Matic, Zouma and Terry playing around that area. Is he going to get the same joy Against them?

I'm torn, on the one hand I think it's risky and poor management to take such conclusions from single games, on the other I think maybe he's just trying to build these guys up and inject some real confidence into them. The way they played as an attack was brilliant, and you definitely do want to feed that confidence any way possible.
 
Given the Stoke game was the best attacking performance we've probably had under LvG in the PL
I can see why he'd not change it for the next, personally I'm not convinced against better midfield's and less weakened defenses he'd do as well as he is slow and weak, we'll just have to see.
 
I made a thread saying it's his best position and that he should be used there, and I'm far more intelligent than you so that makes it correct.
 
His physique is always an issue no matter what position he plays, however his technical ability negates off that.

I believe the 'freedom' given to the players has allow them to express and move more around the pitch. Mata was seen all over the pitch helping out.
 
Cina said:
I made a thread saying it's his best position and that he should be used there, and I'm far more intelligent than you so that makes it correct.
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I think there's good reason that at his last 3 clubs he started from wide positions, either left or right.
 
I prefer him as a ten with pace in the wide areas. Hes our best passer and most intelligent attacker. He doesn't have to track back as much as playing wide which is the weakest part of his game.
 
I was happy to see Mata as #10. He can pass and he can shoot. He will provide assists and goals if given the #10 as his.

I have seen a lot of people on here that dont rate Mata and thats just stupid. Good players can be a lesser version of themselves if they are played out of position. I think its safe to say that Mata has been played out of position for a long time.
 
nokillingmoths said:
I prefer him as a ten with pace in the wide areas. Hes our best passer and most intelligent attacker. He doesn't have to track back as much as playing wide which is the weakest part of his game.
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This.

He obviously lacks physicality compared to a Fellaini (or Herrera). He doesn't have the dribbling ability that a Januzaj can bring to that position either (though I think it's too early to rely on Adnan and LVG clearly agrees).

What he does have is vision and an eye for goal so he brings both the creativity that has been lacking and a threat himself ghosting into the penalty area late.

Long term he may not be our best option for that position but now Juan is Mr. Right for no.10.
 
He's clearly a #10. He should of been starting in that position week in and week out since we signed him.
 
sun_tzu said:
David Silva, Chelsea not playing with a 10 under Jose and LVG being a bonehead?
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He was a winger his whole spell at Valencia, and played predominantly coming in from the right or left at Chelsea but for a relatively short spell starting centrally. It's a complete myth that he's played most of his career as a 10 and played his best football there. At least 80% of his career has been starting from wide positions.
 
Pexbo is actually right, it's such a stretch to justify his time here as him suffering some terrible injustice playing a wide birth as if its completely alien to him.
Also that stuff before about his tracking back being less of a problem centerally than out wide, I don't agree with either, when he drifts out of the game wide, we're giving time and space to opposition fullbacks, when he drifts out of the game centrally you're liable to give central defenders and ball playing mids time on the ball which can hurt far more.
 
nokillingmoths said:
I prefer him as a ten with pace in the wide areas. Hes our best passer and most intelligent attacker. He doesn't have to track back as much as playing wide which is the weakest part of his game.
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Yeah I agree with this to be honest.
 
Stoke were terrible in defense, left too much space, it would be premature to draw conclusions.
 
Obviously he won't change a winning formula but if it is no longer a winning formula then he will.

Personally I don't think it's just Mata. As is with Louis' system team play is vital, there seems to be an understanding with Mata and his team mates, this will elevate any players performances as we saw with Blind (LB), Young (LW) and Fellaini (LCM) last season.

Take Rooney, when he wasn't performing even a combination like this wouldn't work, the quality comes from the relationship of the players on the field and subsequently it will elevate each players performances.

Juan Mata is a good player, whether he is good enough as a 10 or not at this level probably is not too important since Louis van Gaal's system is so team oriented, it can go from poor performances where most players look awful to amazing performances where most if not all players look excellent.

And so if things click into place this team will be hard to stop, the key word being team, everybody will do their bit, the opposition centre backs and defensive midfielders will be too occupied with excellent (collective)* off the ball movement and quick passing and smart passing to mark Mata out of the game therefore in my opinion as with any other player on the pitch, whether he performs or not depends on whether we have clicked or the last two games were flukes.

*players will make movements in sync with each other, timing their run to match their team mate so the opposition defence gets pulled apart. And our play will be quick so we should get a few 4 v 4 or 5 v 5 situations per match.

I'm optimistic this is the start of our season because Louis van Gaal has said a number of times the players have demonstrated in training they can do what he wants. For me, the Chelsea match is perfect timing as that will be a huge test and so give us more information on where we're at. I'd say though if we perform each player on the pitch will have had a good game, if we don't, most will probably be less than good enough.

Second season at Barcelona for Louis:

DWDDWDWWLWLLLLWWWWWWWWDLWWWWWWDWWDWWWL

After losing four in a row he won 14 out of his next 16

This pattern also expressed itself at Bayern in his first season where he played awful stuff and had awful results and then when things clicked the other extreme, in his second season he got sacked but here the board have shown patience with him so there is always the possibility things could click.

If things click then yes Mata will look amazing but that doesn't mean if he went to another team he would be effective as a 10, if things click the attacking players will be playing like they are one person with several bodies.
 
He was able to put his stamp on the match yesterday because we had so much more pace in our game than usual. Mata thrives in situations where he can get the ball early on the half turn and release it quickly, as soon as he has the ball at his feet for any length of time he becomes a liability as he doesn't have the strength or pace to hold onto it. As long as we play with high tempo Mata will do well in that #10 position.
 
I think having Martial on the wing really helped Mata, he was taking advantage of all the space Martial was leaving. I think if Martial keeps up his form and keeps taking defenders on then Mata will continue begin good at no10.
 
We scored two beautiful goals from two perfectly executed counter attacks. We also looked very threatening whenever we used Carrick's ability to pass the ball through the lines from a deeper position. That's because we tried to be more direct in order to offer both Mata and Martial enough space and time on the ball to do their thing.

As for Mata in particular, i don't think it has to do that much with the position he played yesterday but with the role he was given on the pitch. Until now he has utilized either on the right wing and occasionally (3-5-2 or diamond) in a more central position but his role was always that of the playmaker. This didn't happen yesterday, his instructions were to play close to Rooney and spend more time in the attacking half. Martial was the one who was setting up most of our attacking plays while Mata was always looking for spaces to exploit in the box (or on the edge of it), he was often swapping places with Rooney/trying to stretch the defense and generally he was asked to put his passing abilities to good use in the final third/when one or two passes are needed to end the move.

As one of the people who believe that the majority of our creative players would look far better in a system that uses a far more direct passing game i'm not very optimistic though. We didn't play deep and we din't draw Stoke into our half because we had planned it but because we were forced to do it in order to deal with Crouch and Arnautovic in the box. Most of the time we tried to play LvG's football.

Also keep in mind that Carrick had one of his better games yesterday. It's sad that these performances have become rarer (due to injury or bad form) and what makes it more sad is that there's no one else with his passing range in our midfield.

I also believe that against sides who have a good deep lying playmaker and/or many runners in the midfield, there'll be games in which we'll lose more than we gain from playing Mata in the hole. But only time will tell how well we will be able to cope with that. After all, (the much and rightfully criticized) Fellaini did a very good job at closing down the first attacker and covering for others.
 
He's a good 10 in a counter-attacking team. Not so much, when his team suffocates the opposition. He's useful in transition - when the opposition defence is stretched and/or out of position.

Give him the ball on the halfway line with defenders running back towards their own goal, nobody to dribble past, space for his teammates to run into...
and he'll pick out the runs very well, or do a give-and-go resulting in him scoring.

But give him the ball 25-30 yards from goal, with 2 banks of four to carve open, and he's constantly forced to surrender possession of the ball too quickly. He wouldn't get into any serious possession team. He doesn't do enough to make the ball stick or to move the team into dangerous areas.

And in terms of the top counter attacking teams - he wouldn't even get into a serious one of those. He's of little use defensively, can't relieve him team of pressure via dribbling or carrying the ball out of danger himself, and he can just generally go missing.
 
Would be happy if he proves me wrong, but nothing we've seen of him suggests he can put in performances like last night on a consistent basis.
 
Pexbo said:
I think there's good reason that at his last 3 clubs he started from wide positions, either left or right.
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Last two clubs you mean?

He has always played in clubs with out wingers or inside forwards on both flanks. When he's been played on the flank he's been able to interchange with the player positioned as a #10. He's sometimes been able to that from the right here but not always.

Against Stoke he played with players on either side who were always very wide which gave him free space to make runs and that's one of the biggest strengths imo, his off the ball runs. He's never static and that plays well with Martial who will be able to get the ball into better positions and run at less players.
 
He was poor against Derby, better last night. I think we should wait more than one easy home game before thinking we have found an answer.
 
Leftback99 said:
He was poor against Derby, better last night. I think we should wait more than one easy home game before thinking we have found an answer.
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Confidence I guess. Got a goal against Derby, maybe that has given him a boost. Hopefully he can exact revenge on the Chavs on Sunday
 
Acquire Me said:
I was happy to see Mata as #10. He can pass and he can shoot. He will provide assists and goals if given the #10 as his.

I have seen a lot of people on here that dont rate Mata and thats just stupid. Good players can be a lesser version of themselves if they are played out of position. I think its safe to say that Mata has been played out of position for a long time.
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Never considered him to be played out of position. It's he's own fault for not making the 10 his own. He always plays shit there. Take Leicester as a key example.
 
I disagree with the OP, I think it is his best position as a 10. It showed last night - he ran the game. We are all United fans wanting us to improve and do well, so no problem. If this system works against Chelsea, let us keep it. Good performance last night.
 
He would do with some protein powder. Unfortunately the general forum is special privilege.
 
Leftback99 said:
He was poor against Derby, better last night. I think we should wait more than one easy home game before thinking we have found an answer.
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He was good in the second half against Derby but basically you're right, we shouldn't jump to conclusions based on one and a half games. Yesterday was a good performance from both him and the team but they weren't exactly in keeping with the general pattern of the season, a pattern we could well revert to.
 
Personally I don't think it matters all that much whether he plays as a #10 or a RW who drifts into the #10 position anyway. There are pros and cons to having him in either of those positions.

The main thing is how we play as a team, not where Mata fits in on any given day. When we play in a slow and cautious way Mata looks slow and cautious, possibly because he's trying to operate in what we've all come to recognise as one of the most tumescent systems in the league. When the overall approach improves then so does Mata, regardless of where he playing.
 
it's his best position and it's typical of Van Gaal that we've cried out for him to be there, he's complained about a lack of width and pace and has still repeatedly played Mata out of position

I still feel we haven't seen the best of Mata and maybe he could have an impact closer to what Silva, Ozil or De Bruyne have done if he is played in that creative role with speedy players around him

I hope he plays him there for the next 10 days so he can get into some form
 
It's his best position but there are other factors why it's best for the team. When we have Mata on the right and Rooney in the center, that's two vital attacking positions with little speed and almost no threat to dribble around defenders. Add in Herrera or Fellaini as AM then it gets worse because only Martial has true speed and can beat a defender. With Mata in the middle we can have speed on the right and it changes the whole dynamics of our attack. If Lingard does improve soon (he is doing ok) then I hope LvG gives Janucay a chance.
 
Horses for courses. Against certain teams, Mata is an excellent #10. Other times, I'd rather see Herrera (or even Rooney if we had another striker). Mata definitely benefits with having Martial & Lingard on the wings, as that allows him to make passes to deeper/faster wings. Plus Rooney has hit a patch of form, so it gives Mata a bit more room to operate. Still would like to see a version where it was Memphis/Martial/Lingard along the front with either Mata/Herrera/Rooney as a #10.
 
Cina said:
I made a thread saying it's his best position and that he should be used there, and I'm far more intelligent than you so that makes it correct.
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I think the same so your comments now have some validity
 
Pexbo said:
He was a winger his whole spell at Valencia, and played predominantly coming in from the right or left at Chelsea but for a relatively short spell starting centrally. It's a complete myth that he's played most of his career as a 10 and played his best football there. At least 80% of his career has been starting from wide positions.
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Yes... But you said there was a reason he didn't play as a 10 for his clubs
I'm saying those reasons were predominantly that valencia had David silva for that role, Jose wasn't particularly using a 10 in his formation at chelsea and lvg has been a bit of a numpty for not playing him there because "philosophy" or some such nonsense.
 
He was dreadful against Derby despite scoring, totally different against Stoke.

A real enigma.
 
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