Mata's very easily dealt with and I feel like the SAF blueprint is pretty much how most teams have been dismantling our RHS since we signed Mata.

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Excerpt From: Sir Alex Ferguson. “Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography.”

A word about the game, first: against Di Matteo’s Chelsea we needed to work out how we would operate against Juan Mata, Oscar and Eden Hazard. Those three were hammering teams and turning on the style.

The two sitting midfielders, Ramires and Mikel, were bombing on.

We elected to load the right side to attack the areas they had vacated by attacking us, and squeeze Mata’s space.”

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How To Neutralise Mata's Threat

Restrict his space. He can't beat a man 1v1, passing is the only danger he poses.

Press fast, he's terrible at quick passing and counter attacking. He's at his best unlocking a well organised stationary defence in 2 banks of 4. He panics against a dynamic, aggressive press.

Easiest way to get bodies to him quickly is to load the area around him. This also cuts all his immediate passing lanes and his long distance passing and cross-field crossing is fairly average relative to his passing within the 5-15 yard range.

SAF packed the entire RHS and pressed Evra/Young high to take advantage of this. He pretty much abandoned Rafael/Valencia on the right to focus on Mata.

How To Attack Mata

Pace. Preferably on the outside, even better if you have two very fast players one who can go wide (Evra) and another great at cutting in (Young).

You can see how much more we attacked Mata on the Zonal Marking match report: http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/10/29/chelsea-2-3-manchester-united-two-goals-a-dangerous-lead-two-men-a-significant-advantage/

Turnovers. He's slow to return to position and when you steal the ball from him via your pressing above he's very slow to recover. This often leaves you in a 2v1 situation with the RB.

The RB that plays behind Mata will be caught out of position. Every RB who's played with Mata has struggled. SAF knew this, Ivanovic got a red card this match getting caught out. SAF totally abandoned Rafa/Valencia knowing he'd get a lot more going after Mata's side and opening up space on the right as the CMs and CBs started drifting to neutralise the threats coming down Mata's flank.

Mata drifts in leaving the whole flank open so the RB is out of position to cover. Mata can't stretch the fullbacks so the RB has to attack and few can sustain that workrate so errors happen as they tire more than normal or they get caught out of position unable to return in time.

There's a reason why Varela, Valencia and Darmian are only out of position when Mata's the RW. There's a reason why Darmian's attack only suffers when Mata's ahead of him. He gives up attacking because he has to focus on protecting the whole flank on his own.

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         Cahill       Luiz

 Ivanovic       *RvP*        Cole

          *Rooney*    Mikel

  *Young*    Ramires         *Valencia*

   Mata   *Cleverely*    Hazard

              Oscar    

*Evra*    *Carrick*          *Rafael*

                Torres

       *Evans*       *Ferdinand*