A number of Manchester United fans have turned to social media to slam the performance of Nemanja Matic in their Champions League clash away to Juventus on Wednesday evening.
The Red Devils travelled to Turin looking to avenge the 1-0 defeat suffered at Old Trafford a fortnight before but found themselves frustrated by the Italian giants in the first half, with a limited number of chances to threaten the home side’s goal.
The match finished 2-1 to United – Cristiano Ronaldo and Paul Pogba netting against their old sides – but the Old Trafford faithful were left bitterly disappointed with the performance of 30-year-old midfield ace Matic and took to Twitter to voice their anger, with a couple suggesting the Serbian international should be forced out the exit door.
COMMENTARY
Perhaps it was simply the frustrations of the game which left the Manchester United fans unhappy but their criticism of Matic was a little over the top. What were they expecting from the midfielder – defence splitting passes, surging runs forward and a constant threat to the opposition defence? That simply is not the player that Matic is and he carried out his duties as well as anyone else in Turin. He was always there to break up the play, and feed the ball to another teammate to try and get their side on the attack. Yes, he might not be the most forward thinking of players and can appear boring to watch, but if United want success then they have to strike a balance and Matic brings that to the team. There were certainly other players who did not live up to expectation, and while the Serbian might not have been at his best, he was certainly not as bad as the supporters are making out.
This is Futbol has gathered a selection of the supporters’ tweets:
Matic disasterclass? Not surprised. Worst player all season
— Srivatsa (@chintu_macha) November 7, 2018
Matic is still absolute toilet
— Scotty Tridge (@TridgeTV) November 7, 2018
Matic out
— Eric Omido (@amriodor) November 7, 2018
What are you on about? 90% of the mistakes were from Matic
— Faiz (@ImMFaiz) November 7, 2018
Much better, actually pressing Juve
Young not been great
Matic pointless
Pogba poor
Herrera been good— Mateus (@cel_mattery) November 7, 2018
Young and matic are dreadful ?#JuventusManchesterUnited
— Gioconda (@Gioconda_01) November 7, 2018
https://twitter.com/LegendOfUnited/status/1060273829799493633
https://twitter.com/Ziyood12/status/1060275201450147840
Pogba has been woeful and matic too. Matic takes so long to pass the ball and gets surround or either keeps allowing his man to run beyond him.
— John Sweeney ???????? (@johnsweeneyact1) November 7, 2018