Nemanja Matic

[The only place to be 11,313]

tbh II meant it the other way around. We were solid as rock because among other things he was a solid protection, the moment he flutters, so does the defense imo. He's the one player that made us solid, if he starts producing less, we suffer... We have slow CBs, protecting them is important.

I didn't mean like he's villain, I meant more like he's thermometer, the guy that made a difference when we're at the top, if he isn't on his best, we suffer. If you read ALL my posts about our shaky defense I keep saying I'm not concerned yet, as I think the players aren't there yet shape wise, that Mourinho will make some positioning adjustments now that we changed our style to a more offensive approach... etc. You can't find one post of mine saying our defense is a major concern of mine. I keep stressing I think it's due to physical fitness and the change to a different style - both things which demand a few weeks. I said I'll start be concerned if by the end of September we're still making the same stupid mistakes.

I also agree he can't get replaced, I said that in the very first post, when I look to the bench Mikel offers something similar defensively, but the rest can't be comparable and I don't expect a DM to only offer tackles and pressing. He also offers transition, quality passing and he is a thousand years ahead in terms of vision.

By the defense conceding too much, I'm taking into account the feeling we had since pre-season, while I'm one of those people that believe PS is only for fitness, it left a feeling about the defense, that carried on through the regular season. We owe it to Courtois to have had a clean sheet against Leicester. He made two brilliant saves when 0x0.

I know a few people here shared the same feeling that now we don't feel like we won't concede, but we go through the match afraid that maybe we will. Last season we felt like leaking our defense was a top level task...

Also I'm quoting my two posts. First, I said maybe because then I realized we couldn't bring Ramires, as Ramires was already playing and Mikel would only do half of the job.

Then in a subsequent post I made a condition: if we have a better replacement compared to Mikel (should have been HAD to be syntax correct) we would have brought this nonexistent player.

We don't have a replacement for him, yesterday I liked the post below mine stating as much. I thought he could have been subbed, unlike what Mourinho - or some of you maybe - think, I don't think he's up there in form with Iva. He's been making mistakes he usually doesn't, which I can only credit to physical fitness. He improves our defense, and if he's having bad match, he exposes the defenders more than usual. I didn't blame the goals on him directly - I think he was bad positioned in one of them though, but I'm considering his slow start one of the reasons for our defense shaky moments. Even against Leicester - when we had a clean sheet - we had brainfart moments... In the very post you quoted, I finish the sentence saying I don't blame him alone, I think we have a few problems, but one of the major problems so far is the huge space between defense and midfield. Do you disagree about that space existing? Who should be filling said space? Against Leicester the space was ever bigger... I'm not crucifying the guy, but I understand why you would think that based on the sentence you highlighted alone... the thing is, my post had many sentences, not only that one. So in the context I think his slow start is exposing our defense and that is one of the causes of our shaky defending at the moment. And he had a bad first half, period.

I think you're being overly harsh on a player who is one of 11 adapting to a different style of football. Oscar is going through the same and I'll defend him as well.

The problem on Saturday was that we missed Oscar and had Ramires in instead. He left space, he didn't make tackles or track runners and he mishandled possession time and time again.

Honestly I'm not sure why you wrote what you wrote about Matic beyond you feeling like you had to say something. You don't. Not everything has to be written about in great walls of text. Is Matic playing as well as he was last season? No, not yet. Is the rest of the team as solid as they were in January of last year? Nope, but that's because it's still early in the season.

Against Burnley we played a team who were buzzing for their first PL game and we ended the game after 45 minutes.

Against Leicester we broke down a very solid team in a manner we couldn't last season, but that consequently left us open at the back. Fact is the breakthrough came from our right-back who was further forward than he was most of last season.

Against Everton the game was crazy, but our second goal came from our right-back. Our fourth came from Matic who was further forward than you'd expect as well.

Just have some patience.

[Footballover 222]

Its not just Saturday its since the start of the season/pre-season.

Brain farts.

He was our best player in pre-season. What are you talking about?

[DH1988 1,273]

He was our best player in pre-season. What are you talking about?

Probably talking about my own personal opinion, ah yes.. I am

[The Skipper 20,593]

Probably talking about my own personal opinion, ah yes.. I am

It's interesting because I'm sure quite a few would agree that Matic was one of our better players in pre season...

[Daniel1980 1,425]

To be honest, if Matic's name was Mikel, he would have gotten a lot of criticism for his performance since the start of the season. But the team is in transition and I don't really expect a faultless performance from anyone. Probably only Costa was close to flawless since the start of the season, but even he wasted a few good chances and was poor in the air. The team needs time to become a true team. The important thing is, we have 3 wins and didn't drop the points we would have dropped last year.

[The only place to be 11,313]

To be honest, if Matic's name was Mikel, he would have gotten a lot of criticism for his performance since the start of the season.

Matic at his worst is still twice the player Mikel is at his best.

Some people are criticising him for his performance against Everton, and he was some way off his best yet he still got a crucial goal, an assist, led the team in tackles and was about average in terms of passing accuracy.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

Matic at his worst is still twice the player Mikel is at his best.

Some people are criticising him for his performance against Everton, and he was some way off his best yet he still got a crucial goal, an assist, led the team in tackles and was about average in terms of passing accuracy.

I know, and Matic is one of my favourite players in the team, but truth be told, he's been very far from his best since the start of the season. But as I said, I'm not that worried yet.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

We are attacking more than last season, it will expose us more on the counter. Look at the Matic goal, we made around 15-20 passes in the move to the goal and Matic was so high up the pitch.

The back will be exposed more this season so I hope we get used to it. Our season depends on 4 huge factors now

1. Courtois on form making last ditch saves and making sure we concede much less from corners

2. Fabregas finding those killer balls to break opposition (4 assists so far)

3. Hazard making more dribbles and moments of magic

4. Costa making runs to create space and chances while maintaining his clinical form

These conditions will keep us outscoring opponents and remain exciting, but if we start losing too much points, Mourinho will scrap it to keep us winning

[dee25 1,044]

I rate this guy very highly. He's such a gifted football player and has the potential to be the best defensive midfielder - he's already one of the best in my opinion.

But I agree that he's been generally poor. Maybe "poor" is an exaggeration, but it's clear that he's been struggling not only against Everton but also against Leicester and Burnley as well. However I think people need to realize that with Cesc in midfield now, it'll probably be hard for Matic to be as dominant as he was last season. I love the dimension Cesc gives us offensively but when the team isn't in possession he tends to be slow and passive in closing down players. The knock-on effect is that Cesc is easily bypassed, which then results in Matic having to leave his position to go and press the player with ball, which then throws off our shape completely. So while Matic has been poor, it seems slightly unfair to single him out particularly because he hasn't received much help from Cesc or even Ramires.

It's only been 3 games, but the early signs are that Cesc and Matic need more work. Oscar really is the only one out of that trio that understands what's required of him in this midfield system.

Also between Cesc and Matic, the both of them completed 78% and 74% of their passes, respectively. To put this into perspective, Hazard had about 89% and Willian 90%. It's one thing for Ramires to be sloppy on the ball, but Cesc and Matic simply have to do better.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

dee25, on 02 Sept 2014 - 8:16 PM, said:

Also between Cesc and Matic, the both of them completed 78% and 74% of their passes, respectively. To put this into perspective, Hazard had about 89% and Willian 90%. It's one thing for Ramires to be sloppy on the ball, but Cesc and Matic simply have to do better.

I agree with you that both of them(and Ramires) were pretty sloppy against Everton and must do better. But when Cesc played deeper, his pass accuracy has been very high - 85-95%. He made a few sloppy passes in our half against Everton, but half of his unsuccessful passes came from risky balls into attacking third. You don't get the through-ball rate he has by playing safe passes. Many probably don't remember, but when Cesc played higher on the pitch for Arsenal, his pass accuracy was just around 80%, so it's pretty normal for him when he plays in attack in the PL.

Out of Matic's misplaced passes only 1 was in the attacking third. The other 8 were misplaced in our half and in the middle of the pitch. That's why I was unhappy with him. All of them need to improve their passing under pressure.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Also between Cesc and Matic, the both of them completed 78% and 74% of their passes, respectively. To put this into perspective, Hazard had about 89% and Willian 90%. It's one thing for Ramires to be sloppy on the ball, but Cesc and Matic simply have to do better.

And Terry and Cahill completed 81% and 74% of their passes respectively. It was a sloppy performance from a lot of players.

Matic and Fabregas have completed 83% and 89% of their passes so far this season. The Everton match was almost certainly a once a season aberration that people really shouldn't read too much into. The lack of Oscar had a lot to do with that.

[Barbara 15,149]

Okay, so maybe I was extra harsh but it's a case of what I teach my kids: the higher the expectation the bigger the room for deception/disappointment. I'm one of his biggest fans, I wrote an article worshiping this guy the moment we signed him before he ever touched a ball for us and I stated then and I stand by those words even more now, that he's the midfielder we've been missing since Ballack left us and that he would bring us the stability we had in the 2005-07 seasons again because he's a beast.

So with expectations so high - because of him and because of what he offered - I may have been too harsh upon his 'poor' presentations to his own standards. It only proves how important he is to our system.

With their positioning and movement better drilled, I'm positive we'll improve our defensive system. We also need time for that to happen. I just want to make sure - again - that I only meant he had a bad first half, not that he's bad or should be replaced. We also need to find a way to fill the sometimes huge space between our defense and our midfield.

Also re-watching the match again with Dion yesterday we both noticed that sometimes we have too many of our players surrounding a zone of the pitch or opponent, leaving other areas/opponents with a lot of space. Some of Everton's most dangerous attacks and goals (particularly the second) comes from that positioning mistake. but it's early days and I'm not worried yet. Actually it's a wonder that our attack - with two new players (counting Cesc's contributions in the attack) has adapted and clicked so fast. The defense and the midfield are going through the normal rhythm. The important thing is try and do our best not to drop points and so far, so good. We have a good challenge coming Sept. 13th with Swansea and hopefully we'll continue to get three points. The team's chemistry, positioning and all the little adjustments needed to be done will come.

So apologies for jumping the shark (although he had a poor first half)

And thanks for the nice answers and debate.

[Sidzeret 2,257]

I rate this guy very highly. He's such a gifted football player and has the potential to be the best defensive midfielder - he's already one of the best in my opinion.

But I agree that he's been generally poor. Maybe "poor" is an exaggeration, but it's clear that he's been struggling not only against Everton but also against Leicester and Burnley as well. However I think people need to realize that with Cesc in midfield now, it'll probably be hard for Matic to be as dominant as he was last season. I love the dimension Cesc gives us offensively but when the team isn't in possession he tends to be slow and passive in closing down players. The knock-on effect is that Cesc is easily bypassed, which then results in Matic having to leave his position to go and press the player with ball, which then throws off our shape completely. So while Matic has been poor, it seems slightly unfair to single him out particularly because he hasn't received much help from Cesc or even Ramires.

It's only been 3 games, but the early signs are that Cesc and Matic need more work. Oscar really is the only one out of that trio that understands what's required of him in this midfield system.

Also between Cesc and Matic, the both of them completed 78% and 74% of their passes, respectively. To put this into perspective, Hazard had about 89% and Willian 90%. It's one thing for Ramires to be sloppy on the ball, but Cesc and Matic simply have to do better.

Cesc-Matic is still adapting to the Premier league and it will get defensively stronger as they play more together.

Having said that, its better to play Fabregas in the hole behind Costa with a Matic-Ramires/Mikel pivot against the bigger sides or we could get dominated again in midfield like at Goodison.

[Polo7 3,496]

Couldn't be anymore condescending if you tried.

The sign out button is top right if you need it.

Stay on topic now.

[Special Juan 27,424]

Stay on topic now.

Don't get funny mate.

[Polo7 3,496]

Don't get funny mate.

Seriously just because you got a little mod badge next to your name doesnt mean you should nit pick every fucking post. It gets really tedious seeing you exercise your "power". Get a life.

[Special Juan 27,424]

Seriously just because you got a little mod badge next to your name doesnt mean you should nit pick every fucking post. It gets really tedious seeing you exercise your "power". Get a life.

Please carry on by all means.

[Polo7 3,496]

Please carry on by all means.

I get a warning for that. Absolutely pathetic. Apparently we are all adults on this site.