Are Chelsea actively trying to get rid of Juan Mata in January? While it wouldn’t be that surprising, there’s a good chance that reports coming from Spain about the Premier League club offering the Spanish playmaker to both Barcelona and Real Madrid won’t amount to much.
According to Sport, Juan Mata is trying to make a strong push this month in order to escape the situation he has been caught up in at Chelsea, with Jose Mourinho slowly but surely pushing him out of his previous role for the team, and making him almost redundant in the current system, which doesn’t really allow him to bring his full set of skills to the pitch.
His father and agent are offering clubs to try and sign him. Mata isn’t looking for playing time just for the sake of it. A World Cup year means that it’s vital that he doesn’t get left on the bench for too much, or his chances of travelling with the national team to the tournament in Brazil will be severely damaged.
It’s not only the two Clasico clubs that are after him according to the report, suggesting that Monaco are monitoring the situation but of all the three clubs, Real Madrid are the most interested party. Mata actually came through the team’s youth system, but never got a chance to play for the senior club before moving on to Valencia in 2007.
Carlo Ancelotti is rumored to be a big fan of his, and adding Mata to the mixture will allow him to use Isco less and less after the young Spanish star has been disappointing lately after a promising start. It will also give him the option to use Angel di Maria less and less, even though the Argentinian has usually made the most of the opportunities given to him with Gareth Bale nursing injuries from time to time.
As for Chelsea, there’s a good chance that aggressively trying to sell Mata might mean that the rumors about the team’s financial issues are true. Abramovich is still filthy rich, but he’d like the club to handle without him injecting money all the time, which means covering their £49 million loss by selling players before Mourinho gets new toys for him to play with.