The Skipper

It's clear some on here haven't played 11 a side football at even the lowest level. If you have you would understand how frustrated Mata is - from star player, marginalised to a mere bench player - despite obvious efforts to improve, he still didn't get enough playing time. If you played football at any sort of decent level you'd understand that he's leaving because he isn't playing enough at all and United are the only club offering an exit for him now.

Don't bother pal, some people will always look for a Judas/scapegoat.

Go read through the thread again and you'll find people calling him spoilt, a child, pathetic, that he's undermining Mou etc. It wasn't about him not fighting, he clearly wasn't fancied by Mou as a number 10. Whenever he did play it was 90% out on the flanks where he is less influential. You'd have players like Oscar or Hazard who we're under performing but they'd still be starting in the following game. Mata has a sub par performance and he's benched for 3/4 games. You seriously can't say that a player as good as Mata is happy with just being a squad player when he can be more elsewhere.

Uhh, he did get slaughtered. Mata didn't want to fight to be nothing more than a bench warmer, yeah. It was clear Mourinho already made his mind up about Mata. He was barely played in his proper position, bloody hell.

There was no way Mata was in Jose's future plans, that was clear, so why should he fight to be a bit part player? I don't understand why Mata is being made into the villain here. You do realise that Jose also just could've said "no, you're not going" just like he did with Ba right? Mata has the chance to play regular football again, we receive a substantial fee for him. It's not ideal that he's going to United but I can understand why the club accepted the bid and why Juan doesn't really want to stay. It would be very different if Juan was one of our most influential players this season but he's been a bench warmer.

I don't understand why you don't understand that there was no way Mata would be begging to stay on the bench.

Well, I still think the Willian signing was unnecessary at the time because I thought that Mata and KDB would be given prominent roles. Obviously now that they're both gone the Willian signing makes sense but at the time it's understandable why most didn't want Willian (esp. after we signed Schurrle too). I never questioned his talent, I've always admitted he's a good player. Similarly with Salah - guy is a decent player but it means that a few of our on loan youngsters (Traore, Piazon, Atsu) will definitely be moved on again next season. He's not much better than those guys IMO. It's just pretty annoying that we are once again throwing money at a problem when we could've fixed it internally.

LOL! Salah was better than Hazard was two years ago? This is ridiculous. Let's completely forget that Hazard was player of the year in France. Salah hasn't even achieved that in Switzerland.

I'm not saying he's a bad player, he's obviously pretty good. It's just that he's not that much better than our young lads. We could've easily given that bench spot to one of the more promising lads (if you're looking for a left footed winger) like Atsu or Traore. Again, he's not a bad player, but I'm annoyed that we could've just saved the £10m and spent it elsewhere whilst at the same time promoting youth.

Bale was 100m euros but wow if true.

I don't think anyone said Willian was terrible - the signing at the time just didn't make sense to a few people - it had nothing to do with his talent. Negredo and Suarez were signed to challenge for the first team, not as squad players. My main gripe is that he isn't much better than some of the loanees we have out there already, so signing him as a squad player for £16m would be annoying seeing that Bertrand Traore, Piazon or Atsu could have a similar impact too.

£16m. Wow.

Many will incorrectly view him as Mata's replacement. Me, personally, I would rather give someone like Traore, Piazon or Atsu that spot because he's not significantly better than any of those.

Tbf, before that Robben was known as a big game bottler, and this is coming from someone who really admires Robben and has avidly followed his whole career. I was delighted with him last year because he finally stepped up in those huge games. He deserved it, I didn't want him to go down as a great player that just bottles it in big games. I don't know if you remember him spurning the best chances of the game in the WC Final...

Good loan considering Wigan play his sort of football. Josh needs to step it up.

If we're looking towards the future then Salah is not a great signing at all considering we have the likes of Piazon and Bertrand Traore in the wings. Even Atsu. He is not significantly better than any of those. I'd be very annoyed with this signing.

Willian and Hazard link up very nicely, but Oscar hasn't developed that chemistry yet, you know the same one he has with Neymar for Brazil.

Hope he goes. Love the bison but we don't need him anymore. Wishing you the best big Mike.

I would just prefer us giving Bertrand Traore that spot tbh.

I really hate how his face is pretty much plastered everywhere outside The Bridge.

I really hope so. The kid's got everything in his game, if he could just consistently prove he has finesse in the final third he'd be almost unplayable.

The Alchemist.

The Mata transfer will put a lot of pressure on Oscar. I hope he starts fully proving that we'll be fine without Juan - I want him to step up and consistently provide those killer passes. I hope he has that in his locker. He needs to be a lot more creative in the final third.

This is stupid, because we didn't receive a £37m offer for Drogba, JT or Lampard.

You mean the man that was forced to jump on a sinking ship. Whether he ends up saving it shall be remained to see.