It all started with Jose Mourinho. Juan Mata, in some ego-driven power-battle, was pulled from being the icon of Chelsea Football Club to being portrayed as a mere bench-warmer.

Juan Mata was the face of Chelsea, the crowd's favourite, the creator-in-chief and all-round good guy of English football before he was driven out of the limelight by the sheer arrogance of Mourinho. At the time it was easy to make excuses for Mourinho's decision on tactical grounds, but, really, Mourinho didn't like the idea of someone being as adored by the Stamford Bridge faithful as him.

Mata is a player who needs the team to be built around him and that was perfectly demonstrated in his time at Chelsea. He is a player who is as restricted as he is brilliant and, when you compensate for that, he is as good a 'No.10' as anyone. The Mourinho saga was quickly followed by a move to Manchester United, and it looked like a second Premier League dawn for the ex-Valencia man, but he wasn't so lucky.

Entering into the turbulent reign of David Moyes at Old Trafford, Mata's class was clear for all to see. The Spaniard strolled around the park as his team-mates laboured against the weakest of opponents. Yet, Mata still - largely due to arriving in the January window - did not have the team built to his needs. The Spaniard was a star for the closing months of Moyes' reign, but he was nothing more than a golden cog in a rusty Man United unit.

Once Moyes was moved on, the impending arrival of Louis van Gaal made for an interesting time for Mata. The standard names were linked with moves to the club and, from the off, the playmaker was clearly not going to be the integral figure he needed to be. It is important to stress that, at his Blues best, Mata was the heartbeat of the team. The Spaniard was as pivotal to the Chelsea XI as Lionel Messi is to Barcelona. The kind-hearted blogger has always been an immensely popular character, but his physical restrictions make him a hassle for some managers to use. Van Gaal demands intensity, in a similar way to Jose Mourinho, and needed the extra pace in the final third. Mata should be in his element playing in the pocket behind Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial right now, but the recent return of Wayne Rooney has seen him cosying up next to Memphis Depay on the bench, or playing from the right hand side.

Mata's career has, thus far, been blighted by turmoil. Even his best days at Chelsea were amongst the up and downs of Rafa Benitez's tenure and Manchester United are yet to settle as a club since his arrival. The worst step for Mata's career would be Jose Mourinho arriving in the North West, but being forced to move on could enable the Spaniard to become integral to a team once more. Mata's place in the side is hard to justify unless you play a particularly slow-paced 4-2-3-1 and that will always be his downfall. However, the playmaker is still only 28 years old (his birthday is today) and, if a manager builds around him, we could yet see the diminutive Spaniard at his best once again.

Some players need to feel loved, some need to be fired up and some are only worth their squad number if the team makes space for them. Juan Mata, much like Kaka or Juan Roman Riquelme, in that he needs space to play and he needs to team to utilise his exceptional skills. The summer will be crunch time once again for the Spaniard, and don't be fooled by his relatively average statistics this season (particularly 1.4 key passes per Premier League game) - it is a result of the system, not a judgement on his quality.

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