The fall and future of Chelsea FC’s Nemanja Matic

Nemanja Matic’s star has fallen significantly during this disastrous Chelsea FC season, but where did it go wrong? Does he have a future with the Blues?

Nemanja Matic did not play for Chelsea FC this past weekend against Swansea City. He did not play because he was injured. My attentiveness to pre-match injury reports has waned in direct correlation to the club’s performances, so I was not aware of his injury.

I watched the entirety of the Swansea match assuming he was yet again an unused substitute, as he was for the two previous matches against West Ham and Aston Villa. Matic occupying the same forgotten area of the substitutes’ bench as Radamel Falcao is a depressing development when considering the midfield wrecking ball that he was last season.

We expect a player’s form to decline with age or when a significant injury is sustained, but what makes Matic’s downfall so distressing is that he is 27-years-old with no obvious impediments to enjoying what should be the prime of his career.

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In October, Jose Mourinho spoke of the need to rebuild the Serbian’s confidence.  He wanted Matic to distill his game to its basics, and remove any lavish maneuvers that would be more likely to lead to mistakes.

Mourinho felt the poor passes and incessant concession of possession – features that were becoming increasingly more prevalent in his play – were eroding away his confidence (this was very logical). The idea was that the successful completion of more simple tasks would boost his morale and allow him to return to the all-conquering midfield monster he was formerly.

This all sounded good, but it ignored a greater issue: why is a player coming off the best season of his career – a season where England’s top attacking talent resided in his back pocket – suddenly a liability bereft of confidence?

Matic made every task he completed on a football pitch look simple during Chelsea’s title-winning season. There was a devastating efficiency to the way he patrolled the area in front of the Blues’ back four.

An opposing attacker’s eyes would widen as a path to Thibaut Courtois’ goal would emerge, and then Matic would quickly appear to dispossess the ball from the dejected player with a perfectly timed tackle and minimal visible exertion. ‘Lavish’ is not the first word that leaps to mind when reflecting on his performances that campaign.

So what happened? The pudginess that afflicted the figures of Diego Costa and Eden Hazard when they returned from their summer break wasn’t a problem for Matic, and other than a few minor scrapes here and there, injuries haven’t been a problem either.

why is a player coming off the best season of his career suddenly a liability bereft of confidence?

His struggles do seem to somewhat coincide with the horror challenge he suffered at the ill-placed studs of Burnley’s Ashley Barnes last February. A challenge of that sort could certainly affect a player mentally and lead to a drop in on-pitch performance, but using that as a reason is really just conjecture. Unfortunately, at this point, hollow armchair psychology is all we have to try and ascertain what’s gone wrong.

Chelsea have been here before. When Fernando Torres was purchased for 50 million questionable pounds from Liverpool in January of 2011, the severity of his knee problems weren’t quite as widely known as they are now. Each goalless match from El Nino was followed by boundless scrutiny of not just his play, but his body language.

Football pundits suddenly became psychiatrists, and every rueful gaze to the sky and sullen drop of the shoulders from Torres was analyzed for clues as to what it could mean on a larger scale about his struggles. This all was rather pointless, but when a supremely gifted athlete’s skills have disintegrated that rapidly, sometimes that’s all there’s left to do.

The conundrum facing Chelsea as the club enters its most important offseason in recent memory is what to do with a player who at his best is an unstoppable force of nature, but presently seems incapable of even being a reliable substitute. It’s an unenviable decision. The question of which version of the player – the 2014/15 good one or the 2015/16 bad one – is the real one hangs over not just Matic, but a few other players (see: Hazard, Eden) as well.

Chelsea’s ability (or inability) to attract talent on the transfer market with the absence of Champions League football is going to be significant. Rumors of Chelsea being linked with quality players such as Roma midfielder (and possible Matic replacement) Radja Nainggolan are certainly intriguing, and I suspect new boss Antonio Conte’s reputation is going to be beneficial with regard to the club’s appeal.

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The ever-capricious transfer market may not need to be relied upon so heavily though, if Chelsea’s fallen heroes can return to some semblance of their previous selves. In the case of Matic, whether or not he has the ability to be one of the top midfielders in the Premier League is not the debate. Why that ability has vanished, and if it can be restored, are much trickier questions.