Juan Mata has been constantly linked with a move away from Manchester United ever since the club announced Jose Mourinho as their new manager. Amidst all the speculation and rumours, which is the norm during the off-season, the latest club to be linked with him does actually make quite a bit of sense. The said club is Everton. Though this might come as a bit of shock to the football faithful who are pretty used to the mid-level nature of Everton’s transfer dealings barring the odd guilty splurge on a Lukaku or the faith shown in an inconsistent Deulofeu, it is indeed a possible scenario as Everton experience somewhat of a mini-revival of their own.
After the solid and thoroughly unspectacular lengthy reign of David Moyes (which had its own charm and achievements) the who’s who over at Goodison Park decided to go with the articulate and perennially underachieving Spaniard Roberto Martinez. Sporting a receding hairline, Roberto is known for his attractive style of football going forward (with loopholes the size of the moon at the back) which yields entertainment for the neutrals but not so much for the club’s supporters. Having admitted, the otherwise low-profile advocate of tiki-taka, did not work out for them, Everton, with new Iranian billionaire Farhad Moshiri at the helm, swiftly moved to announce Ronald Koeman as the man to take them to new heights.
And signing a high-profile player like Mata suddenly doesn’t seem a distant dream for Everton. After being sidelined at Chelsea by Mourinho, the duo reunited at Man United and there was no reason to believe they were going to hit it off this time around and it has proven to be the case. Mourinho had declared Mata would have to be satisfied playing 1 game out of 3 and in the latest piece of controversy between the two, Mata was subbed off in the 93rd minute against Leicester after being brought on in the 63rd minute as he was deemed too short to play any further part in the 2 minutes that remained in the match.
Mata will welcome the opportunity to remain in England and hopefully curl in a few into the top corner of David De Gea’s goal. Everton are sorely lacking in a playmaker in the No.10 role who brings in poise and precision which Mata will bring into the side. With all due respect to the current No.10 Barkley, as talented as he is, he needs to start producing returns more consistently as his strong and direct approach is beginning to lose it effect and he has been reduced to a player on whom the club can’t be expected to rely on other than for sporadic returns on festivities and on annual wonder-goal day against Manchester City.
Mata will surely take quite a bit of load off Barkley and Lukaku as he brings goals as well as assists with him having scored 10 goals for Man United in the past two seasons. And Mata will relish being a marquee player after a long time and the chance to express himself along with the man who gave him his first professional title at Valencia.
With Everton keen to get back into the thick of things at the top of the table signing Mata certainly looks like a step in the right direction and the fans would be hoping this transfer materialises rather than going up in smoke.
