Nemanja Matic

[ricardosr 38]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn79viya0bM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRIccyU8lU

Our goals from yesterday.

Matic played well, we played in 4-4-2 and porto in 4-3-3 so 2 vs 3 in the center of the field and yet their midfielders couldn't create any goal chances.

Btw, for those who doesn't know, we are the only club in the world that broadcast our home league games in our TV channel and we also broadcast a lot of Premier League games (5/6 per weekend) so I watch Chelsea almost every week.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

Probably be nearer the end of the week. These things always drag out.

[Eidur the Spider 4,515]

#CFC expect to complete the £21m signing of Matic in time to make his 2nd debut for the club on Sunday against #MUFC (Evening Standard)

Also butthurt on the Man Utd forum:

From red cafe:

"It's bizarre he's going back there after being more or less shafted. In fact it baffles me why any young player would ever want to join Chelsea.
They're career killers unless you cost 20 million pounds. They've constantly buried young talent down the years. f**king vile club, shafted him out whilst overpaying for a clumsy Brazilian and now they're paying stupid amounts to get him back.

Chelsea FC #f**ktards 4ever."

Bless..I think they should get Pogba back...

[Pizy 18,368]

I was expecting to wake up and be disappointed when checking twitter. Thought I'd see something like "We received a bid far below our valuation from an English club and it has been rejected" from Benfica.

Guess it's good that didn't happen at least. Would be brilliant to have him for the United match. At least on the bench.

[Special Juan 27,429]

#CFC expect to complete the £21m signing of Matic in time to make his 2nd debut for the club on Sunday against #MUFC (Evening Standard)

Also butthurt on the Man Utd forum:

From red cafe:

"It's bizarre he's going back there after being more or less shafted. In fact it baffles me why any young player would ever want to join Chelsea.

They're career killers unless you cost 20 million pounds. They've constantly buried young talent down the years. f**king vile club, shafted him out whilst overpaying for a clumsy Brazilian and now they're paying stupid amounts to get him back.

Chelsea FC #f**ktards 4ever."

Bless..I think they should get Pogba back...

Desperation and frustration all rolled into one.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Foreign journalists know nothing about Benfica.

Our rival, Sporting, in the last 4y has -250M, we in the last 4y always had profit in the end of the seasons, except this last one.

Do you think that we are like Malaga or Anzhi, do you think that we are going to sold most of our players for a bargain?Not a chance.

Today there is news talking about a 50M offer from Zenit to get Rodrigo+Garay. If that is true we don't need to sell Matic, unless he really really wants to go.

Not good news. That will probably hike the price by 5mil. We've got to act fast, tuesday latest.

[The Skipper 20,593]

#CFC expect to complete the £21m signing of Matic in time to make his 2nd debut for the club on Sunday against #MUFC (Evening Standard)

Also butthurt on the Man Utd forum:

From red cafe:

"It's bizarre he's going back there after being more or less shafted. In fact it baffles me why any young player would ever want to join Chelsea.

They're career killers unless you cost 20 million pounds. They've constantly buried young talent down the years. f**king vile club, shafted him out whilst overpaying for a clumsy Brazilian and now they're paying stupid amounts to get him back.

Chelsea FC #f**ktards 4ever."

Bless..I think they should get Pogba back...

Funny thing is, clumsy Brazilian and Matic would walk into their team right about now.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Matic isn't coming in for Mikel though. If you're saying that then you clearly think Mikel was a starter.

Matic is coming in to fill the void next to Ramires. That means less playing time for Mikel and Lampard. It wasn't a problem with Mikel because he wasn't a starter to begin with, it was a problem with the squad make up.

I think this is one of the general problems with a lot of Chelsea players and Ramires exemplifies it. What kind of player do you want playing next to Ramires? He's very good defensively but he's not a defensive midfielder. He needs freedom to be able to go forward but he's limited in attack. I haven't seen much of Matic, but to me, I don't think he's the ideal player to play next to Ramires. There aren't a lot of advanced stats available for public view for Matic except from the Champion's League and Europa League over the last few seasons and in those 25 games or so he's been poor. There are a couple of things that concern me

1) his low passing percentage and that's a low passing percentage and this is not a player who is crossing the ball a lot or feeding the ball into dangerous areas which result in lower passing rates. He's a central midfielder and not one getting tons of assists. His passing percentage should be around 90% In last year's CL, he had a 76% passing rate. This year, it's 83.2%. In the Europa league it was 80.1%. In the CL the year before around 74%. A Ramires/Matic duo is not likely to move the ball particularly well.

2) He's gotten worse. Last year, he was a 3-time player of the month. This year, he hasn't won it once and by all accounts, he has regressed.

That being said, he will definitely be an improvement on what we currently have and we badly need a central midfielder right now.

[The only place to be 11,313]

I think this is one of the general problems with a lot of Chelsea players and Ramires exemplifies it. What kind of player do you want playing next to Ramires? He's very good defensively but he's not a defensive midfielder. He needs freedom to be able to go forward but he's limited in attack. I haven't seen much of Matic, but to me, I don't think he's the ideal player to play next to Ramires. There aren't a lot of advanced stats available for public view for Matic except from the Champion's League and Europa League over the last few seasons and in those 25 games or so he's been poor. There are a couple of things that concern me

1) his low passing percentage and that's a low passing percentage and this is not a player who is crossing the ball a lot or feeding the ball into dangerous areas which result in lower passing rates. He's a central midfielder and not one getting tons of assists. His passing percentage should be around 90% In last year's CL, he had a 76% passing rate. This year, it's 83.2%. In the Europa league it was 80.1%. In the CL the year before around 74%. A Ramires/Matic duo is not likely to move the ball particularly well.

2) He's gotten worse. Last year, he was a 3-time player of the month. This year, he hasn't won it once and by all accounts, he has regressed.

That being said, he will definitely be an improvement on what we currently have and we badly need a central midfielder right now.

1. He's fairly adventurous in his passing and he gets into advanced positions regularly. You're going to see a dip in pass completion and with the way we play football, possession isn't everything. The first thought is to get the ball forward fast, often in counter-attacks. If that doesn't work then we tend to pass the ball around and look for someone like Hazard to do something. His distribution will make us better at executing our primary plan of attack.

2. Meh. Form is temporary.

[Jase 43,479]

#CFC expect to complete the £21m signing of Matic in time to make his 2nd debut for the club on Sunday against #MUFC (Evening Standard)

Also butthurt on the Man Utd forum:

From red cafe:

"It's bizarre he's going back there after being more or less shafted. In fact it baffles me why any young player would ever want to join Chelsea.

They're career killers unless you cost 20 million pounds. They've constantly buried young talent down the years. f**king vile club, shafted him out whilst overpaying for a clumsy Brazilian and now they're paying stupid amounts to get him back.

Chelsea FC #f**ktards 4ever."

Bless..I think they should get Pogba back...

Oh the irony in that statement.

And as if those young players that have joined United are doing any better...

[HD3D 1,038]

If he leaves for < 35M€ i'll be upset.

He's better than Witsel and we sold him for 40M€.

I'm not saying that Matic is worth more than 40M€, but 35M€ is a good price for him.

He has the technique of a number 10, I saw people saying that he's like Mikel...that's far from true.

Another thing, we don't have financial problems. The thing is, in the last years we always sold 1 or 2 players for more than 20M€ (Ramires, Coentrao, Di Maria, David Luiz, Javi Garcia, Witsel), but this season we decided not to sell anyone (we had an offer for Matic close to 40M€ in the summer and Cardozo was close to leave too) so it would be good for our finances (we don't have a russian or an sheik giving us money) to sell a player for something like 25M€.

I would accept 30M€ + Oriol Romeu

Btw, I hope Chelsea wins the PL and CL...but without Matic on the squad

The player is demanding that the club let him leave. When things get to that point, the club doesn't have much choice. If it was up to me, Chelsea would get him without paying a penny to Benfica lol.

[Toli 977]

Record saying its a done deal for 25 m euros

http://www.record.xl.pt/Futebol/Nacional/1a_liga/Benfica/interior_premium.aspx?content_id=862625

Today he as at the Gala in Zurich. If any news, I think we will get them tomorrow/wednesday

[Special Juan 27,429]

Does seem like it's happening this, lots written in Portugal and our stations too, seems like we have identified him as our man. He will be played in a roll that we are screaming for, and alongside Ramires should hopefully prove fruitful and charge us to the league title. From what I read he is miles ahead the player we sent to Portugal some years ago, and in some sense being talked about as a midfield trojan. It sounds to me like we are getting in now as he has really developed his game and has become not the complete player but nigh on that, and if Jose is happy to fetch this kid back then I'm happy too.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

Is he any good at set-pieces?

[jmarlow 458]

I'd say because of his ability to see passes quickly and execute them instantly, and his ability to close players down quickly and put himself about for someone of his size, i would compare him to Javi Martinez. I wouldn't say he is equally as good as him but i dont think there is much between them.

I agree i see him as quite similar to Javi Martinez! I am so excited about this re-signing!

[jmarlow 458]

Is he any good at set-pieces?

look at the size of him, i think he will be in the box for set-pieces not taking them.

[Term-X 7,891]

Don't see the problem with re-signing him, since he would have NEVER become the player he is now if it wasn't for leaving. We should sell Chalobah outright, but with a gentleman's agreement that 'we'll be back'.

[zolayes 14,489]

the question must be asked ...Why couldnt we develop this player ourselves .