The numbers tell the story, where Juan Mata is concerned. He has averaged a goal or an assist every 95.7 minutes in his last 13 appearances for Manchester United: effectively, a vital intervention every game.
It is why he suddenly finds himself a crucial component of Jose Mourinho’s plans for Sunday’s League Cup final against Southampton.
The very notion of joining a line of players walking out behind Mourinho at Wembley was once unthinkable, given the way that the manager saw him off Chelsea’s premises two years ago, and facing Southampton carries particularly searing memories where he is concerned.
It was against that team, on New Year’s Day 2014, that the Portuguese sent him to the point of no return where their dislocated relationship was concerned. By replacing him with Oscar just seven minutes after half time, the manager provoked the kind of response which was alien to the Spaniard when he was being named Chelsea’s player of the season in the two previous years.
Mata ignored Mourinho when he left the pitch, slammed his seat in the dug-out, threw his arms up in frustration and had to be calmed down by his team-mates. The cool indifference that followed from Mourinho in the subsequent press conference bore remarkable resemblance to what he said this week about Wayne Rooney, another player he has deemed dispensable.
“I want to keep him. I want to keep him. I don't want him to go. But my door is open and the club's door is open too. When a player wants to speak with us, we are there waiting...” Within days, Mata was on his way to Old Trafford.
There was no opportunity to clear the air with the incoming manager this summer, yet the contribution Mata has come to make speaks to the kind of individual he evidently is, especially given the inauspicious start between the two of them in August’s Community Shield. Mata was sent on from the bench after 63 minutes, yet was substituted for Henrikh Mkhitaryan after 89. He did not look happy.
Mkhitaryan’s own initial struggles this season, taken with the soap opera which surrounds Wayne Rooney’s own difficulties, have presented Mata with the opportunity to show what he can do and his versatility has been self-evident. Both in the No 10 role and in the wider areas, he has consistently provided the vital interventions.
In the Massif Central on Wednesday evening, it was from the left flank that he finished off Saint-Etienne. A beautifully weighted left-foot cross, bent around the back of the defence, was intuited to perfection by Mkhitaryan who sent it on into the net. “Micki-Mata,” some fans have taken to calling the pair, in a take on ‘tikki-taka.’ A similarly vicious low Mata cross into the six-yard box invited such panic that the French almost put into their own net.
It is Mata’s perspective on sport which seems to have brought his sanguine response to the news that the man who effectively removed him from west London would be heading through the Old Trafford door. The player caused a storm last summer when telling the Spanish TV programme ‘Salvador’ that he and other professional footballers earn “obscene” amounts of money. “Football is very well remunerated at this level. It’s like we live in a bubble. Compared to the rest of society, we earn a ridiculous amount. It’s unfathomable.” He certainly sees the bigger picture.
In a conversation with Gary Lineker for the BBC’s Premier League Show, broadcast on Thursday night, the 28-year-old reflected that his enjoyment of his chosen profession had extended for longer than he had anticipated. “I bet if you ask every footballer player what they want to do [after playing] they will tell you they want [a break],” he said. “I felt like that for a long time but now that I’m getting older, I feel if will never go out of me.” Football continues to unravel. The League Cup is the only trophy available to British clubs which Mata has yet to claim.