Nemanja Matic

[Tomo 21,681]

I'm not bothered at all by that. One player in about 15 years and hundreds of youngsters that we let go that turned out to be any good. Who is the second best youngster we let go in that period? Jack Cork? Robert Huth? When you have so many people coming through, one or two will eventually turn out to be good. You can't keep everyone just because of that.

Exactly, for one Matic or Sturridge there's 20 (maybe more) Borini's, Mancienne's Sinclair's or Di Santo's, which is quite funny i remember being told we would regret it when we let those 4 forenamed players. Although i do think Cork should have stayed and been the versatile homegrown, squad player.

[Rekin 835]

Matic was not that good in his first full season at Benfica, but in my opinion he was one of the league's best players in the second one.
A friend of mine who follows the portugese league religiously had this to say about him:

"After he got out of Witsel's shadow he became immense, better than most expected. Good vision, passing ability, has a good shot and keeps calm under pressure (very good at shielding the ball). He also works extremely hard during games, gives it all he got. One of the better players in Portugal last season.
He is however quite a slow player, and it is not certain that he would fit english football very well. Having said that, Ramires would be a good complement next to him."

Matic and Zouma would be good transfers. I still prefer Lars Bender though, is there any truth to him having quite a low release clause in the coming summer?

[José Mateus 46]

Matic used to be a sub for Javi Garcia. He just proved to be 5x the player Javi was for us.

http://abload.de/img/maticvsolhanenselwu9e.gif

His goal yesterday.

[jasonlol 154]

http://sulia.com/channel/soccer/f/1163b0ec-ee49-4342-b5e4-2546db06a992/?source=twitter

Duncan Castles reporting Mourihno will have chance to buy dm in january and matic is on his list. Would be buzzing if it happened.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

I totally forgot that benfica didnt qualify for champs league knockout stage. And its now 2 seasons in a row. We wont have a better chance to sign Matic at a cheap rate and solve our pivot once and for all.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

£25 million. Good player, but are we seriously going to buy back a player we let go for what worked out to be about £3-4 million? That seems utterly ridiculous and simply emphasises our lack of patience with young players.

Be interesting to see if we chuck in a young player this time.

Actually didn't we include him in the Luiz deal to knock 2m off the price?

Would be a huge f*** you to our board if this does happen.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Actually didn't we include him in the Luiz deal to knock 2m off the price?

Would be a huge f*** you to our board if this does happen.

The mistake we made was not to include a buy back clause. Like madrid did for carvajal. I hope they learn their lesson now lol

[Toli 977]

I still dont think that he is worth the money. he isnt that much better in terms of offensive play, than the DMs we have (from what I have seen). he is maybe more mobile than Mikel and has a better shot definetely, but he aint creative at all and he is more someone who destroys than builds up a game...so I am kinda torn between buying or not buying. he has his qualities, but not really what we need and futhermore I think with 25-30 m we would pay over the odds for Nemanja. And he hasnt really proven himself internationally at all. playing godd in portugal or in the EPL is really something different.

[lucio 5,408]

I still dont think that he is worth the money. he isnt that much better in terms of offensive play, than the DMs we have (from what I have seen). he is maybe more mobile than Mikel and has a better shot definetely, but he aint creative at all and he is more someone who destroys than builds up a game...so I am kinda torn between buying or not buying. he has his qualities, but not really what we need and futhermore I think with 25-30 m we would pay over the odds for Nemanja. And he hasnt really proven himself internationally at all. playing godd in portugal or in the EPL is really something different.

not creative at all?

he actually has pretty good vision and can pick attacking passes

[Toli 977]

Most of the video is showing headers or him taking away the ball and passing it to the guy staying next to him . technically he is better than mikel ans also faster and more mobile, but he aint a creative player like Modric/Alonso/Pirlo/Arteta and Co at all.

[wilander 35]

I prefer Guarin + Matic to Essien + Mikel

[Toli 977]

I prefer Guarin + Matic to Essien + Mikel

Guarin+Matic cost probably 40 m more than Essien+ Mikel, so this aint a big wonder that they are better

[kellzfresh 7,226]

not creative at all?

he actually has pretty good vision and can pick attacking passes

Fantastic video. He's a physical beast, puts in masive tackles, he certainly has vision and picks out passes our pivot cant.

The only problem is i didnt see enough long passing to say he's an expert in that.

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

i think it is my first time when writing about nemanja, but let me tell you a little story

back in february 2009 i was in turkey, right when teams from romania were playing some friendly matches just before starting the championship again (because of the big winter pause in the romanian championship - during from december to march - romanian teams tend to go to warmer places to play some friendly matches). nemanja matic was playing at that time for mfk kosice and i had the chance to watch the slovaks play twice against cfr cluj and rapid bucharest. he played first against cfr cluj and he scored a nice goal from a free-kick, and then he played against rapid bucharest where he was simply faultless, terrific display in the midfield area and i remember he was a beast in the air, he won every header. i was in the stands at both games and i had a chat with an official from kosice and i asked him about this lad. even though it was a friendly match you could have seen he'll end up being a great player. i didn't knew anything about matic, it was the 2nd time when watching him play and that kosice official i was talking to said to me big clubs are monitoring him with chelsea ready to offer the right money to sign him. (joking a little bit, i said to myself: "hmmmm, not bad, if i'm able to recognize such a talent seeing him only twice, and friendly matches too, it means my scouting skills are not bad at all" )

three or four months later he signed for chelsea and now it is beyond my logic how chelsea let him go w/o putting a buy-back clause in his contract or something like this. i haven't watched him that much in his benfica days, but some say he's better than witsel was when playing for benfica, others say he is benfica's best midfielder right now, but the fact is we need a player like him now and i'd be glad if chelsea would sign him (again!).

[Steve 10,227]

We don't have a buy back clause by any chance do we?

[Yeboii 1,844]

If we got him wont he also count as home-grown since he was brought up by us?

[Jype 6,398]

If we got him wont he also count as home-grown since he was brought up by us?

Probably not because he only spent a year and a half at Chelsea.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

According to some reports, he is the player who covered more ground than any other in CL this season. If that is correct, he has some great engine for PL.