PICTURE THE SCENE: November 27, 1992. Manchester United were struggling badly. The time when they dominated English football seemed a distant memory. There were doubts over the manager and many of their stars.
Despite the club possessing some promising players, they found themselves struggling to compete with big-spending rivals in Aston Villa and Blackburn. Even less illustrious teams such as Norwich City and QPR were outperforming them in the league.
Their solution? Spend an exorbitant amount of money on a player who can make all the difference, a messiah-in-waiting who the fans will instantly canonise — and back then, £1.25million was an exorbitant amount of money by footballing standards.
The result was the acquisition of Eric Cantona. And while nowadays, the purchase is routinely hailed as an ingenious one, back then, there was considerable doubt over whether the move would be a success.
Cantona’s talent was obvious, but question marks remained over his temperament. Neither Liverpool nor Sheffield Wednesday availed of the opportunity to sign him previously, and while his time at Leeds was hardly unsuccessful (with a respectable return of nine goals in 28 games), it was not so spectacular that they weren’t willing to sell him to a rival for big money.
The rest, of course, was history, with Cantona inspiring United to win their first league title since 1967 by an impressive margin of 10 points. They would then go on to win several trophies with the Frenchman continuing to be an integral part of that success.
22 years on from the class of 92 and history, to a degree, seems to be repeating itself. United are in trouble, and have looked to a star from one of their main rivals to bail them out.
Can Juan Mata, who is expected to sign imminently for United, have the same effect as Cantona once did? In the short term, certainly not. United are in seventh position, 14 points behind leaders Arsenal. Even their most optimistic fans will admit that they cannot repeat their incredible comeback of 1992-93 — or the several incredible comebacks that followed in the ensuing years under Fergie. The top four and a much-coveted Champions League spot, however, are still within their reach. And in fact, it would not be exaggerating to suggest achieving this feat is as important and improbable as that inaugural Premier League title win appeared in 1993.
There is unquestionably more at stake now than there was in the early 90s — money is everything in football, and failure to qualify for the Champions League, as Liverpool fans will know, can have a severely detrimental effect on the club in the long term, in addition to the obvious financial problems it would pose to United, especially given that qualification for the illustrious competition has been taken for granted for the best part of two decades at Old Trafford.
Like Cantona, many have raised doubts about the signing of Mata. If he’s such a good player, why do United’s main rivals seem so happy to sell him? Again, similarly to the Frenchman, the Spaniard is often accused of laziness, and justifiably so — his unwillingness to track back is a patent deficiency in his game. It’s therefore no surprise that a coach such as Jose Mourinho, whose teams are invariably built on hard work and a solid defensive structure, is content to discard him.
Nevertheless, it would be no major surprise if Mata ultimately came back to haunt Mourinho and Chelsea. Although he is far from exceptional defensively, in attack, he remains one of the Premier League’s most effective players in spite of his lack of game time since the Portuguese coach’s return to Chelsea.
Mata’s credentials speak for themselves. Still only 25, he already has a World Cup, European Championship and Champions League medal to his name. In addition, since his move to the Premier League at the beginning of 2011-2012 season, he has wasted little time in settling in. He had the second highest number of assists in the league at the end of his first season in England, bettered only by Manchester City’s David Silva. Moreover, he has been named Chelsea’s Player of the Year for two consecutive campaigns, and was also a PFA Players’ Player of the Year nominee last year.
Yet his work-rate is not the only reservation that some critics have about him. The other main reason why he is being ejected from Chelsea is Mourinho’s desire for balance within the side. The club have two players — Oscar and Eden Hazard — who perform similar creativity-oriented roles to Mata and have been quite successful in doing so this season without the help of their counterpart.
At United, it could be argued that Wayne Rooney, Shinji Kagawa and Adnan Januzaj are all very comparable to the former Valencia man in terms of their style and the positioning they like to take up on the field. Indeed, some have suggested that Mata is a long-term replacement for Rooney, who many feel is destined to depart the club this summer.
However, there is one much-needed quality that the Spain international can bring back to the club and it goes back to his similarity with Cantona — confidence. For all the Frenchman’s limitless ability, perhaps the most important effect his transfer had was evidenced in his ability to inspire those around him and inject a new lease of life into the club. Cantona, even before moving to United, was a world-renowned star, with significant trophy-winning experience. And just as back then, the likes of Bryan Robson et al were severely underperforming prior to the enigmatic Frenchman’s arrival, the present United squad are undoubtedly much better than their present situation suggests — they did, lest it be forgotten, win the Premier League last season.
So Moyes needs to find a way to fit the Cantona-esque Mata into the team — alongside Rooney and Van Persie — because stars, by definition and in practice, elevate those around them and inspire widespread confidence. Inexperienced 18-year-olds, such as Adnan Januzaj, no matter how talented they are, do not, and the sooner United rely on Mata rather than the Belgian-born youngster as their main creative outlet, the quicker their Champions League push can continue in earnest.
