It’s impossible to have Jose Mourinho arrive and not have some casualties from the old regime, and Juan Mata seems to be one of the player no really wanting to stick around at Chelsea, waiting to find out what the special one has planned for him.
According to the Daily Mirror, Juan Mata looked for a pay rise after his fantastic second season with the club, but the answer from both Jose Mourinho as to how he sees Mata’s role with the team and from the club itself on his chances of actually getting a raise (which at the moment is at £3 million a season, signed until 2016) disappointed him, urging him to start looking elsewhere.
He hasn’t handed in a transfer request, but Mata is currently busty with the Spanish national side, playing in the Confederations Cup. There’s no doubt quite a lot of Mourinho-bashing is going on in the dressing room, probably led by Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas, but that’s just speculating, and not cold hard facts that should prove to be any sort of guidelines.
Barcelona are already rumored to be jumping on the opportunity to take away Chelsea’s best player over the last couple of seasons, hoping that there’s still enough money in the cash register after spending €57 million on Neymar two weeks ago. Mata was purchased by Chelsea for £23.5 million from Valencia in 2011, and will probably cost around £30 million for Barcelona if they do enter negotiations with Chelsea for him.
Jose Mourinho is looking to make quite a lot of changes, from the early look of things. He wants a team unlike what Andre Villas-Boas began to build and was later carried on by Roberto Di Matteo and Rafa Benitez. He was a very physical, less technically gifted midfield, although no one is planning on selling Oscar and Eden Hazard anytime soon. At some point, it was going to get a little bit too crowded over that position, and Mata, the best of the trio last season, might be the one who’ll pay the price.