Juan Mata has as much to fear as any Manchester United player after, according to Sky TV reports, Jose Mourinho agreed personal terms to succeed Louis van Gaal in the Old Trafford hot seat.
The Spain midfielder was jettisoned by Mourinho at Chelsea in 2014 despite being a darling of the crowd, having won the Player of the Year award in his two previous seasons at the Stamford Bridge club.
Mata is an astute attacking player who is always liable to chip in with an important goal, as he showed when scoring United’s equaliser in their 2-1 FA Cup final win over Crystal Palace at Wembley on Saturday.
He does not fit the bill, however, for a prototype Mourinho midfielder. He lacks defensive attributes because he has no pace, is weak in the air, cannot tackle and is heavily reliant on his left foot.
“It is one thing to play with Ramires and Oscar closing down opponents on each side and Mata as a number 10 behind a striker with his clever assists, clever passes and fantastic actions because he has great talent,” said Mourinho in September 2013.
“But it is another thing to adapt to the way we want to play.”
No matter how skilful they might be, Mourinho demands all his midfield players track back when the team lose possession to form a solid defensive shield.
Within months of selling Mata to United, the Portuguese replaced him at Chelsea with Cesc Fabregas.
The Londoners won the Premier League at a canter in Fabregas’s first season at Stamford Bridge but in the latter part of the campaign Mourinho was reluctant to employ the Spaniard in a holding role alongside Nemanja Matic, thrusting him further forward where his defensive shortcomings were less noticeable.
Mourinho would have liked to sign the more combative Paul Pogba from Juventus after winning the league but Chelsea’s advances fell on deaf ears, and the club endured a woeful start to the season that eventually led to the manager’s sacking in December 2015.
A possible scenario, now that Mourinho is set to hold the reins at United, would see France international Pogba returning to his first club as one of the linchpins of a new-look team.
Daley Blind is another United player whose role will come under scrutiny.
It seems inconceivable Mourinho would entertain the thought of deploying Blind in the same central defensive role he occupied under Van Gaal.
Mourinho prefers hard-as-granite centre-halves like John Terry of Chelsea, Real Madrid’s Pepe and former Stamford Bridge stalwart Ricardo Carvalho, players that rely on their defensive attributes rather than eye-catching skill at the back.