The Mata-Oscar Debate
Credit: CFC Unofficial https://www.flickr.com/photos/cfcunofficial/17043330161/
In the build-up to the game, Liam Twomey (for Goal.com) and Oulala wrote articles insinuating that Mourinho had made a huge mistake by letting Mata leave in favour of Oscar and tried to use some statistics from their performances over the last one and a half years to drive their points home. But Saturday’s game showed clearly why Mourinho had made the right decision.
Prior to the sale of Mata in January 2014, Mourinho had stated that while Mata is a classy player, his inability to contribute defensively to the team made him a liability. And on Saturday, it proved to be the case as Mata laboured through the match and failed to make any really meaningful contribution to Man Utd’s cause before he was substituted for Adnan Januzaj.
Oscar laboured through the first half, failing to touch the ball more than 3 or 4 times in that period and he only managed one tackle on Young. He and Fabregas were by-passed quite easily by Rooney and Herrera and they both failed to offer much support to Matic and Zouma, leaving wide gaps for them to exploit in midfield.
Oscar also left Ivanovic isolated down the right, leaving him to the mercy of Young and Shaw. But like previous games against Hull City and QPR (where he came in as substitute), his first meaningful contribution led to the winning goal as he produced an exquisite piece of skill, playing a back-heeled through ball into the path of Eden Hazard in the 38th minute to set up the goal.
From that point on, the Oscar of 2014 re-emerged and in the second half, he started running things down the right flank as he provided more support for Ivanovic, forcing Man Utd to shift base to the left. He completed 4 tackles in the second half and made life difficult for Shaw and Young before an unfortunate booking forced Mourinho to take him off in the 66th minute.
Few epitomised Chelsea’s grit and determination more than Oscar in this game and with that performance he has finally managed to silence his critics after all the reports that came in about Chelsea wanting to use him as a make-weight to secure Paul Pogba. He has also justified Mourinho’s decision to keep him over Juan Mata.
Next: Zoom Zouma