Juan Mata

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Mark my words, he will be MOTM tonight.

[Marvin123 484]

if he wriggles free from kroos and schweinsteiger which i believe both will be playing the dm position, he is going to be immense i just know it

ive even had a £10 bet on him scoring at anytime @ 5/1

[Jase 43,479]

WTF! Nobody posted anything about Mata?!!

What a debut season for him in English football. First campaign and he has already won the FA Cup and Champions League. I'm extremely pleased for the little fella but goodness me, he should never be allowed to take penalties ever again! Including that one yesterday, he has missed 3 of his 4 penalties this season!

That aside, Mata now has 12 goals AND 20 assists compared to Silva's 8 and 19 respectively...

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

Guys imagine if Mata win FA Cup, CL and Euros in one season.This will be mind-blowing achievment.

He's half-way there Now for the Euro's!

[Kostas 1,468]

A bit off-topic but Mata's penalty miss had me thinking.

I remember a topic around the middle of the season in which the topic starter expressed his fears of how we may be turning into the Arsenal of 06-10, playing the entertaining "proper" football that both the owner and the fans have been craving for. The thing that the topic starter was concerned about is how we bottled games and threw away results in the very same manner that Arsenal team did. We set new records for goals conceded in the last 10-15 minutes of the game and gave away the cheapest of goals in games that we were by far the better footballing side.

Yesterday Drogba and Lampard scored their penalties while Mata failed to. AVB's Chelsea was built around Mata. Mourinho's Chelsea (and all our successful sides since he left, including Ancelotti's) was built around Drogba and Lampard. Players that had at the time, and yesterday proved once again they still do, the strength of character needed in football, the winner's strength. A strength the serial bottlers of Arsenal lacked, a strength that Mata lacked last night.

Apart from the footballing side of things (tactics, footballing style, substitutions, transfers, individual performances, rotten luck) and what the media forced us to consider pivotal (manager-players relations) the thing that IMO caused the downfall of AVB's Chelsea was coming to a successful club and trying to start from almost zero with players that were largely untested and unproven at this level and under this kind of pressure.

Winning sides are built around winners.

[Santiago. 1,500]

Mata rarely touched the ball the entire match due to our approach to the game but when he did, he moved the ball positively and led the attack. He is young, inexperienced in this kind of level, (starting wise), and missed a penalty due to inexperience of focus and fatigue. He is certainly no bottler

[RamiCFC9 258]

YES we won and iam damn happy about it, but let's be honest i doubt we will ever do that again if we continue to play like this.

[Leif 6,006]

My BIGGEST worry going into last nights match, was that if we failed to win and missed out on CL football next year, that Mata would leave for a team like Real Madrid or Barcelona. That was the only thing on my mind.

He's instantly become one of my favourite players of all time, and he's only been here 1 season.

I hope we have many successful years to come with him involved! :blue scalf:

[TacticalBlues 2,817]

He's had a good time on Twitter too

[Rambo 1,729]

[The Big Drog 1,110]

I agree that he hasn't gotten the admiration he deserves, very important player over the course of the CL campaign. Less instrumental against barca and Munich but that was down to our approach and his ball retention and clever use of the ball last night were essential. Wonderful debut season at Chelsea, key player in both FA Cup and Champions League victories, the only player of his kind in the squad, he has been a joy to watch this season, I look forward to many more years of watching the mercurial spaniard in a blue jersey.

[Henrique 9,133]

@Kostas

Mata played a good match. Mourinho's team wasnt build around Drogba, from 04 to 06, when we won 2 PL in a row, Drogba wasnt as important as he was for the team this days.

Actually Lampard lost a penalty against Portugal in WC, and Drogba was always a flop in African Nations Cup.

Didier was an a avarage striker in his first years here, but he learned how to be a winner. Mata is alerady a winner, and AVB team wasnt built around Mata, since he never knew where to play the guy.

And your comment was 100% uncalled for one day after our victory, and after the season Mata had with us.

[Azpinator 2,325]

Still the future of Chelsea despite that penalty miss, I can't wait to see him play alongside a more flexible attack.

[Jusek 2,031]

53 games, 12 goals and 21 assists... fucking quality!

[Amblève. 4,995]

Does anybody know when he'll be joining the Spanish team for the Euros? Spain will be here in Austria just a few kilometres from my hometown practicing and preparing for the big tournament and I'll be going to the first trainings session tomorrow so I just wanted to know if there's a chance to meet Juan and Torres.

[Jase 43,479]

53 games, 12 goals and 21 assists... fucking quality!

20 assists. Not 21.

[capriccioso 2,545]

Shouldn't take penalties unless we're 3-0 up. Poor lad just doesn't have the nerve.

Apart from that, there is very little to fault him. Brilliant player. Thank you for your career so far, Juan

[Jusek 2,031]

20 assists. Not 21.

Did you count the assist in CL final? If not, looks like the wikipedia is wrong then.