he is very frustrating because he has it in him to be a beast, his off pitch personality is basically how he looks on the field mostly, gormless and passive, I think it's a hard position to be consistent for years, his CM role isn't like a creative player, that skill never goes, it even develops with age, but a high energy, break everything up role, it's hard to be a busy little bee year in year out, I think he must have thought to himself let me see if I can do my job a different way, he is big and not very athletically built compared to some, he might just feel burned out and cant get that jack russell surge in him game after game, this may or may not relate but I was an amateur boxer, at some point my style became lazy and more relaxed and I just couldn't find the energy and that was probably 3 years before matics age, just couldn't bring myself to by hyper so changed style, now I'm older and heavier I couldnt do a round, he is 28, that type of energy isn't sustainable for most and at this level even a 10% dip changes everything

9 hours ago, the special one said:

I'm not seriously suggesting we should sign Henderson (though fwiw I would take him as unlikely as that is).

If we sell Matic who do we replace with? Apparently we're trying to sign Bakayoko, but could he rival Matic's 8 assists this season (Matic also ranked 40th in this season's squawka player rankings, one of only a few CMs to "score" that highly)? Do we risk Kante/Bakayoko who between them only have 4 assists this season?

My point is, I'm all for selling Matic - but only if we can replace with someone who will actually improve the team. De Rossi? Mascherano?

I was kidding about the Henderson thing. But I agree with you, there's no point just selling matic without having a replacement, why weaken the squad like that.

not sure if true, but i wouldn't even be mad at that. i think we can do a lot better tbh. 

 

We would be draft to sell him to a rival club. 

I think Matic has lost what made people rate him so highly, but i still wouldn't sell to a rival. We need to stop doing this. We may get a bit of money, but if it means improving a rivals squad, then i would rather we didn't bother.

30 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I think Matic has lost what made people rate him so highly, but i still wouldn't sell to a rival. We need to stop doing this. We may get a bit of money, but if it means improving a rivals squad, then i would rather we didn't bother.

Agree.

Why do we seem the only club willing to sell our players to rival sides? United, Arsenal and City wouldn't dream of selling us one of their first team players so why do we do it so often?

Annoys me no end, not because Matic would light the EPL with United but because we just look an easy touch.

If we are selling him then let him go to another league.

Edited May 31, 20179 yr by Chelsbear

22 minutes ago, Chelsbear said:

Agree.

Why do we seem the onlyc.ib willing to sell our players to rival sides? United, Arsenal and City wouldn't dream of selling us one of their first team players so why do we do it so often?

Annoys me no end, not because Matic would light the EPL with United but because we just look an easy touch.

If we are selling him then let him go to another league.

Yep. It just means our squad weakens and their squad improves, even if it is just in numbers. 

 It's like we are aiming for small squads every season and i'm getting tired of it now. So many seem to go out before we bring any in. Why can't we bring more in and KEEP the players we have ? 

We won't have much hope competing in the league and Champions League if we are going for a small squad every year. Ok, it means we get some of the youth on bench, but let's be realistic here, pretty much all of them are not good enough right now for us. Aina, Loftus-Cheek, Ake, Chalobah, Kenedy, some of us rate them, some of us don't, but what we do know is that none of them have done anything of note in football yet and to expect them all to turn into starters we can rely on is not going to work.

 

And before anybody says it, i know the transfer window hasn't actually opened yet and that we haven't actually sold Matic, but it's starting to look like we are selling players and bringing in replacements again rather than adding to what we already have.

Edited May 31, 20179 yr by Scott Harris

6 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Yep. It just means our squad weakens and their squad improves, even if it is just in numbers. 

 It's like we are aiming for small squads every season and i'm getting tired of it now. So many seem to go out before we bring any in. Why can't we bring more in and KEEP the players we have ? 

We won't have much hope competing in the league and Champions League if we are going for a small squad every year. Ok, it means we get some of the youth on bench, but let's be realistic here, pretty much all of them are not good enough right now for us. Aina, Loftus-Cheek, Ake, Chalobah, Kenedy, some of us rate them, some of us don't, but what we do know is that none of them have done anything of note in football yet and to expect them all to turn into starters we can rely on is not going to work.

 

And before anybody says it, i know the transfer window hasn't actually opened yet and that we haven't actually sold Matic, but it's starting to look like we are selling players and bringing in replacements again rather than adding to what we already have.

A valid point.

Before anyone left we were thread bare in terms of competing in Europe and now Terry and Begovic are gone it's worryingly thin.

I don't particularly rate Matic but losing him would require us to bring in two top midfielders to balance things out in terms of depth because RLC and Chalobah won't have the expierence to fill in where we want to compete. 

Right now we require 4 or 5 top players before we even start thinking about selling guys like Matic. Doing that would see us needing ha,f a dozen players or more which I don't think we have done since Roman first came.

11 minutes ago, Chelsbear said:

A valid point.

Before anyone left we were thread bare in terms of competing in Europe and now Terry and Begovic are gone it's worryingly thin.

I don't particularly rate Matic but losing him would require us to bring in two top midfielders to balance things out in terms of depth because RLC and Chalobah won't have the expierence to fill in where we want to compete. 

Right now we require 4 or 5 top players before we even start thinking about selling guys like Matic. Doing that would see us needing ha,f a dozen players or more which I don't think we have done since Roman first came.

It's crazy, i was just looking at the team photo from the start of the season. 6 of the 24 players have left in the last 5 months and the only players that have come in to replace them are Ake and Kenedy . If Matic goes then that will be 7 gone, with Bakayoko looking likely to be his replacement. That would mean Chalobah plays back up again ( if we don't sign anyone else ) but does Conte trust him ? With the few amount of starts he has had i doubt he does.

I kinda disagree. Take the money from United and give him Matic. Okay so we sell them Mata, what he did there ? Nothing. Did they do something big ? No.

I don`t see a problem selling the right player for the right sum to rival team.

Matic is past his prime, so we take their money and give them a player that is not a world class, which they can otherwise get if we did not sell him ...

This is a good buisness.
I`m in for selling Matic to United.

 

I wish we would stop selling to rivals. 

I wouldn't mind but it's not like we have much joy buying from fellow Premier League clubs ourselves. 

He may be sh*t, but he's still better than some of their options at CM, so he would strengthen their squad, and the last thing you should ever do is strengthen your direct rivals, unless you are getting one hell of a deal out of it, which I doubt we would.

He'll improve Utd defensively but that isn't where they struggle. They struggle to score and Matic will just make that worse with his one dimensional football. Let him go for £40m+

If, and only if, we sign both Bakayoko and Tolisso then i'd consider letting him go to united for 40 million. That's the only scenario. I'd rather we Malouda'd him than sold him to a premier league rival to be honest

Don't care how he performs for United, selling to rivals is just something you don't do. 

But how many of you lot have been whingeing all season that Matic just isn't good enough?

If they want Matic lets force them into bargaining for Martial, would slot in anywhere in the front three and has bags of potential. Mourinho has no issue selling youngsters for a ready made player either.

7 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

But how many of you lot have been whingeing all season that Matic just isn't good enough?

That's got nothing to do with selling him to a direct rival. Even if he's not good enough for us, if he strengthens their squad, or gives them more options, or basically is anything other than a complete and utter Djilobodji, you should never sell to a rival.

Agree he gives them options, but I don't think he strengthens them. They have Pogba & Fellaini, I just can't see a pairing of Pogba & Matic working.

16 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Agree he gives them options, but I don't think he strengthens them. They have Pogba & Fellaini, I just can't see a pairing of Pogba & Matic working.

I imagine it'd be Matic holding with Herrera and Pogba either side in a 3. 

1 hour ago, Zeta said:

That's got nothing to do with selling him to a direct rival. Even if he's not good enough for us, if he strengthens their squad, or gives them more options, or basically is anything other than a complete and utter Djilobodji, you should never sell to a rival.

 

58 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I imagine it'd be Matic holding with Herrera and Pogba either side in a 3. 

But, if he's as pants as some posters in here would have you believe, he would weaken their squad, not strengthen it.

1 hour ago, ducavis said:

Agree he gives them options, but I don't think he strengthens them. They have Pogba & Fellaini, I just can't see a pairing of Pogba & Matic working.

Matic, Pogba and Herrera might well work.

Matic is criminally underrated on here 

6 hours ago, Remodez said:

Don't care how he performs for United, selling to rivals is just something you don't do. 

I agree on a general level. Problem is that if we are looking to move Matic on and United are interested, we are not likely to get similar bids elsewhere. In recent years it seems like there is more emphasis on how much money we get for a player rather than who the buyer is. Besides, if they are looking for a Matic type player, I think they would be able to find someone of similar quality elsewhere. If we were to sell him to United, I think it makes some sense from a business perspective.

Would depend on price and potential replacements to me. If we sold him for same price as Bakayoko and we got in someone with more skill on the ball that may be okay. 

What I don't understand is why he'd go back to Jose. Somehow after being subbed off as a substitute (when he looked and later admitted to being humiliated) I thought they never made up. Given last year's links with Juve possible some of this is agent talk?