Nemanja Matic

[lionsden 4,689]

Game after game Matic is proving to be the most overrated player ever. Today he was ineffective for the whole match (this is not his kind of game) but one nice pass that resulted in a goal was enough to people see him as man of the match and god-like midfielder.

To be fair with Matic, its not his fault. He is a good midfielder, no doubt the best option we have for that position, but he is just a normal player. To think we would be favorites to win the UCL if we had Matic is just insanity. Weeks ago I read that if we win the league, it was because of Matic (despite the fact that the serbian only had started only 6 games in that moment).

How about this. he's better than any defensive midfielder Brazil currently has to offer.

Matic >> Sandro,Leiva, Reges, Gustavo,Romulo, Melo.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Another player like Matic in summer and we are set. Cant believe we got him for 25mio. Such a great player and Chelsea fan on top of that

I knew he will make it here since the day he said that after he left chelsea, he worked hard in benfica to show us how good he is and return here one day.

Top player.

[BloodIsBlue 291]

He's also a smart guy, learned Portuguese faster and better than some of the South Americans at Benfica who have been in the country much longer (significantly better the Argentines).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8841LpnOOOo

At 14:30 he starts talking about his new born daughter (I don't know if she's been born yet but soon) and the host said 'get ready she's going to be problems for daddy' to which Matic responds 'I'm going to buy a gun'. funny guy

[Henrique 9,133]

Henrique hates our best players. Even Hazard came in for similar treatment, just ignore him. Saying Matic is a one dimensional DM when he's probably the most multi-dimensional DM in football today alongside Busquets shows how utterly and completely clueless you are.

Matic in Benfica lead Europe's DM's in "Key passes" for two years and already has a bunch of key passes and even assists for us since he joined. It's a huge bonus for us that our holding midfielder is also a creator as well Anyone with eyes can see his deep-lying playmaking skills and passing range are superb.

But you love the attention don't you? That's why you always come up with this stuff.

Dude, If you see football in the silly "love" or "hate" thing you should forget about football forums and join some gaming or other nerd stuff. "Henrique hates our best players", gimme a break.

Matic is an one dimensional DM, and he is not in the same level Busquest, Toure or Xuaisteiger are. If you think he is "the most multi-dimensional" DM in football, you are clueless here, but I realized you are clueless in the first a read one of your posts.

You are right, Matic is a superb creator, thats why now we are creating a lot of chances and scoring for free, specially in away matches against small teams.

About the "your love the attention" thing, you are really presumptuous to think I write stuff to get your attention.

[Henrique 9,133]

How about this. he's better than any defensive midfielder Brazil currently has to offer.

Matic >> Sandro,Leiva, Reges, Gustavo,Romulo, Melo.

You are probably right, but the naked true is: being better than Sandro and Melo doesn't make you a superb DM.

[The Skipper 20,593]

You are probably right, but the naked true is: being better than Sandro and Melo doesn't make you a superb DM.

Explain how Matic is a one dimensional DM. You're sprouting out stuff without even backing it up... Go ahead, explain.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Him and Salah are gonna be key against Liverpool, hope they can step it up a level and win us the title at Anfield

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Dude, If you see football in the silly "love" or "hate" thing you should forget about football forums and join some gaming or other nerd stuff. "Henrique hates our best players", gimme a break.

Matic is an one dimensional DM, and he is not in the same level Busquest, Toure or Xuaisteiger are. If you think he is "the most multi-dimensional" DM in football, you are clueless here, but I realized you are clueless in the first a read one of your posts.

You are right, Matic is a superb creator, thats why now we are creating a lot of chances and scoring for free, specially in away matches against small teams.

About the "your love the attention" thing, you are really presumptuous to think I write stuff to get your attention.

Toure, Schweinsteiger DM's?? Saying they are DM's is like saying Lampard is a DM. None of those guys are really holding midfielders. You're utterly clueless. I see you're at it at the Hazard thread again. Attaboy, Henrique! Attaboy!

[iseah100 5,612]

Henrique, eres medio pendejo, no? Matic is a DM, Toure has 17 goals in the EPL this season, he's not a DM.

[Henrique 9,133]

Explain how Matic is a one dimensional DM. You're sprouting out stuff without even backing it up... Go ahead, explain.

Can you imagine playing in any other position rather than DM? Can you imagine Matic switching from defensive to offensive position in matches? Can you imagine Matic in the box scoring a goal after an assist from Hazard or William?

He does what a typical DM is supposed to do: he play in front of the CBs, he destroys, when he has the ball on his foot he made short passes, and when he has the opportunity he make some good long passes, and he doesn't fuck everything like Mikel did. He is good in that role, but thats it. I think the ideal DM is a vintage Essien, a player that can play multiple roles in the mid, because midfield is a really complex area, a midfielder is not like a CB or a GK, when you are buying a GK, you know he is supposed to play as a GK (nowadays is getting more common to see CB playing in different positions, as full backs or even DM, just look at our team), when you buy a player like Falcao, you know he is supposed to play as a CF, but I rather buy a player like Anelka, who can play as a CF but was also a superb winger.

Thats what I'm talking about. Matic play as a DM, but during a 90minutes match, a players is not stuck in his position. Sometimes you just realize that your winger is spending more time doing what a full back is supposed to do, so if your winger is not that good when he has to mark or to protect the defense, the team will suffer, at some point your DM is the one who has the ball possession and is the one who is supposed to create, but if he is not good enough in that duty he will just make a short pass to another player who is supposed to create, so if at that point of the game the team is only attacking, and the opponent can barely get the ball out of their defensive field, that player will be useless for what the team is looking for at that moment.

Matic is perfect for a game like the one against City, I think he will be huge for the game against Liverpool, but I don't think he is the ideal DM to have in a game where you need to take the initiative and build your own chances against a defensive side, since we bought Matic we became more consistent at the back, way more consistent, you just have to look at our stats, but we are still struggling to create enough chances, and I dare to say we are struggling even more than we used to before he arrived. You might say its not his fault, but he certainly did not improved us in this aspect.

[BloodIsBlue 291]

Matic is an one dimensional DM, and he is not in the same level Busquest, Toure or Xuaisteiger are. If you think he is "the most multi-dimensional" DM in football, you are clueless here, but I realized you are clueless in the first a read one of your posts.

He may not be the epitome of multidimensional DMs like Yaya but Matic is damn multifunctional. To be fair Schweini and Yaya take on a box-to-box roles mostly, Fernandinho is the one that has really unleashed Yaya this year allowing him to attack. Did you even notice how quick Matic acted to get the cross into Salah during the Stoke game, go take a second look because it was graceful as fuck?

[Henrique 9,133]

He may not be the epitome of multidimensional DMs like Yaya but Matic is damn multifunctional. To be fair Schweini and Yaya take on a box-to-box roles mostly, Fernandinho is the one that has really unleashed Yaya this year allowing him to attack. Did you even notice how quick Matic acted to get the cross into Salah during the Stoke game, go take a second look because it was graceful as fuck?

Dude, I reckon he is a good Dm, but I dont need to think he is a beast or a world beater to do so.

[iseah100 5,612]

Dude, I reckon he is a good Dm, but I dont need to think he is a beast or a world beater to do so.

Is he a top 5 CDM in the world?

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Henrique doing his best for attention again. Gotta love it.

[Henrique 9,133]

Henrique doing his best for attention again. Gotta love it.

I forgot, you are the guy who turn your posts into topics for the "sake of visibility" when you get ignored.

But I won't spend more time with you, I already know your destiny: you will get banned as others spammers (capriccioso, Orange Has Kono Flash, Phil Driver), or you will become the politically correct nice guy and will turn into a Moderator.

One last advise newbie one:

[Henrique 9,133]

Is he a top 5 CDM in the world?

I think he started no more than 10 games for us, and I dont watch portuguese league, how can I evaluate him based a couple of games? What do you know about Matic?

[The Skipper 20,593]

Can you imagine playing in any other position rather than DM? Can you imagine Matic switching from defensive to offensive position in matches? Can you imagine Matic in the box scoring a goal after an assist from Hazard or William?

He does what a typical DM is supposed to do: he play in front of the CBs, he destroys, when he has the ball on his foot he made short passes, and when he has the opportunity he make some good long passes, and he doesn't fuck everything like Mikel did. He is good in that role, but thats it. I think the ideal DM is a vintage Essien, a player that can play multiple roles in the mid, because midfield is a really complex area, a midfielder is not like a CB or a GK, when you are buying a GK, you know he is supposed to play as a GK (nowadays is getting more common to see CB playing in different positions, as full backs or even DM, just look at our team), when you buy a player like Falcao, you know he is supposed to play as a CF, but I rather buy a player like Anelka, who can play as a CF but was also a superb winger.

Thats what I'm talking about. Matic play as a DM, but during a 90minutes match, a players is not stuck in his position. Sometimes you just realize that your winger is spending more time doing what a full back is supposed to do, so if your winger is not that good when he has to mark or to protect the defense, the team will suffer, at some point your DM is the one who has the ball possession and is the one who is supposed to create, but if he is not good enough in that duty he will just make a short pass to another player who is supposed to create, so if at that point of the game the team is only attacking, and the opponent can barely get the ball out of their defensive field, that player will be useless for what the team is looking for at that moment.

Matic is perfect for a game like the one against City, I think he will be huge for the game against Liverpool, but I don't think he is the ideal DM to have in a game where you need to take the initiative and build your own chances against a defensive side, since we bought Matic we became more consistent at the back, way more consistent, you just have to look at our stats, but we are still struggling to create enough chances, and I dare to say we are struggling even more than we used to before he arrived. You might say its not his fault, but he certainly did not improved us in this aspect.

Fair enough, I can see your reasoning but Matic is a DM, and he's a very good one because he does his job very well.

The Essien analogy is quite flawed because Essien wasn't a pure DM, he was a B2B player. Expecting your pure DM to be as effective going forward as someone like Essien who is a completely different type of player (more in the Ramires/Matuidi mold) is nonsensical.

As I said, Matic does his job very well in the way he shields the back four, starts the transition into attack by laying it off to our more creative/advanced players etc. but you can't say he's being overrated because he isn't a B2B midfielder or isn't meant to be a creator... As you and I both know, he does his job very well, and the fact that despite being a pure DM he's still adding assists to his game is something very good - if we can add a proper DLP/creator next to him we'll have one of the most creative pivots out there because creatively, as he's proved so far this season, Matic is not bad at all. In every game you still need a defensively solid midfielder out there, even in games where you are going to have most of the possession, and Matic is ideal because he recycles the ball very well, and can provide great balls from deep as shown this season... He isn't one dimensional. A one dimensional DM would be someone like Mikel. Matic has that switch to his game where he can see a run and just provide a great long ball over the top for an assist... That to me is another dimension to his game rather than just the usual DM stuff.

Barca have Busquets, who isn't even that creative - they still play him in every game though even though he's a pure DM and not that great going forward. You still need that one player to keep things ticking and we have that in Matic.

You're being unfair on him and expecting him to be something he's not. If you rate him as a pure DM he's one of the best out there, there's no denying that.

EDIT:

I've edited the post quite a bit and added new bits.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Fair enough, I can see your reasoning but Matic is a DM, and he's a very good one because he does his job very well.

The Essien analogy is quite flawed because Essien wasn't a pure DM, he was a B2B player. Expecting your pure DM to be as effective going forward as someone like Essien who is a completely different type of player (more in the Ramires/Matuidi mold) is nonsensical.

As I said, Matic does his job very well in the way he shields the back four, starts the transition into attack by laying it off to our more creative/advanced players etc. but you can't say he's being overrated because he isn't a B2B midfielder or isn't meant to be a creator... As you and I both know, he does his job very well, and the fact that despite being a pure DM he's still adding assists to his game is something very good - if we can add a proper DLP/creator next to him we'll have one of the most creative pivots out there because creatively, as he's proved so far this season, Matic is not bad at all.

You're being unfair on him and expecting him to be something he's not. If you rate him as a pure DM he's one of the best out there, there's no denying that.

And this is why this Henrique guy is totally clueless. You have to actually know something about football before you talk about it and undermine our best players. People take offense to that.