From the outside looking in, you'd think Mata was a four time Ballon D'Or winner with a 30 goal a season record the way some Chelsea fans have been going on about it!
I think you're avoiding my original point here. My point was that when you compare both of them playing in the centre under the same system, Oscar is always a better defensive player, despite Mata's apparent effort. Although now since we've rather gone over this point a lot it's rather moot.
I don't know what you're trying to prove here. I don't think he's very good defensively, and Jose Mourinho obviously doesn't think he is either, else he'd play him instead of Oscar. He's just not particularly good. Mata's main problem is positioning: if he's in the centre, he's too high up. If he's on the wing, he's usually far too narrow.
The real problem is that when Mata's been given his chance to shine in the centre, he's fluffed his lines. Against Palace and Steaua Bucharest he was easily your weakest attacking midfielder, against Everton he was okay but nothing particularly special, against Arsenal he was poor apart from his goal. The only team he really excelled against is, uh, Swindon. Compare that to Oscar, who at least puts in a shift if he's not having a particularly good game, and it's not such a surprise Mourinho is loathe to use him in the centre often.
Thing is though, he DIDN'T track back much in the Palace game at all. I was watching it and thinking this at the time, so I checked up the average positions graph.
That 10 is Mata. He played on a similar axis to Torres! He made one tackle, no interceptions, and fouled two opposition players. If that's Mata's idea of tracking back then I'd be scared of playing him regularly too!
Moreover, it just illustrated how weak your midfield is. Without Oscar zipping around in front of the duo in midfield, we broke directly through the Chelsea centre and right (Mata kept ending up on your right because Willian kept coming inside, which didn't help matters) and frankly we'd have been good value for a point. It was lucky we didn't have three midfielders, otherwise it could've got ugly.
Of course, against Stoke it DID get ugly. They played three midfielders, Mata played slightly deeper and tried to track back a little more, made 2 tackles this time round, but it still wasn't enough. You scored two - not directly linked to Mata, but we'll take it as indicative of greater attacking threat nonetheless - but Stoke scored three because you were so light in that area behind the striker. N'Zonzi and Whelan both had passing accuracy of greater than 85% because there was no pressure on them. At the other side of the pitch. Charlie Adam was pressuring Ramires (presumably because they somewhat rightly though Mikel can't do anything particularly spectacular with the ball) and put in a shift despite not playing particularly well. The two different mentalities of the attacking midfielders on either side gives an indication as to why Stoke won that game.
So now he's unable to influence the game unless he's playing centrally?
If Chelsea got in someone like Guarin and a prolific striker, I think Mata's pros would outweigh the cons. With a more solid defence behind him and a striker that would allow you all to benefit from the extra chances Mata creates, then he'd definitely be worth a go in the centre. The reason I don't think Mata should be regularly playing centrally is because of personnel, not quality or potential worth to the team.
