That is possibly the most stupid post i've ever read on here!
So UTD are not good enough because Mata is in their team.
Our best player by a mile and twice our player of the year was not good enough but those players who are vastly inferior to him are good enough?

You Jose fan boys really take the biscuit.
Because he didn't fancy Mata [Terry Venables had no time for Maradona btw, Not a team player according to him] ] that means a player who was good enough for the CL champs was not good enough for a team with some right load of garbage in it these days
Try thinking for yourself instead of talking shite to back up everything your God ever said or did about football.

And left us in a relegation battle.
Built a team that won nothing for two seasons out of three.
Leaving us with no CL football which will result in heavy financial loses.
Destroyed the team that was being built for the next 6-8 years, leaving us in a right mess with no identity and now we have to rebuild and start all over again.
We took a couple of steps forward for one year to go back five steps.

But when judging players you have to look at the bigger picture. Not just one season. Its short term mentality and thinking. We are dealing with assets worth millions of pounds and in which we have invested massive amounts of money and as such you need to look deeper then just one small time frame. You look at assets past performances and put them against current performances and the reasons surrounding any improvement or deterioration and which one is their natural level? One decent period (Jose's first season back) and one very good season (Title winning season) against one very bad season.

The level of the league is only relevant if you think we will be joining another league.

If we only had one "outstanding player" how come we had 6 in the team of the season?

You are going by your view and opinion and not on any facts.

We was never in any real relegation battle. Yes things was not going well but things in reality was never as bad as the media made them out to be (and are not as good as now as they have been reporting lately)

Who is talking about world class? Nobody has mentioned world class that's a entirely different conversation.

You keep talking about the present and say we are not talking about the past and not the past but then start talking about the past?

You say we don't have the players needed BUT then turn around and say a team who was bottom a year ago and are now within touching distance of the league has? If they can do it why not a team that has performed for two seasons and finished mid to top table in the 3rd season?

Do we have world class amazing players? No but we have a number of outstanding players when talking about the level of the league they are performing in. If you think the league is mediocre or not is not that important. These players have proven they can be outstanding, Can they do so again? That is something we will have to wait and see

Not at all but his performances at Utd have shown me nothing that I did not think before, Very good player for a team at a certain level but a team going for a title? Not a chance. That is not a insult to Mata he was perfect at the time for us when he played for us as we had a decent team but at the time had no chance of winning titles (cups yes) or even having a realistic title challenging run.

Your a fine one to talk about thinking for yourself, when it seems you gain an awful lot of your thoughts from the media and what they say instead of looking into the facts of something your self, Your views on subjects like Conte and away attendance are examples of this

We didn't win the title when Mata was there because we were well short in vital areas of the team,. We had a center forward who hardly scored any important league goals for us. Just imagine how much more damage Costa would do if he had Mata making
those passes for him game after game.
Our defensive midfield was almost non existent.
What he's done at Utd is beside the point! He was perfect for us and it was sheer madness to do what a certain person did to him!

We are now crying out for an attacking midfield player who can consistently score and create loads of goals of season!

He was perfect for you but not perfect for what we needed to do to win titles or compete for them.

It is not a attack on him or means I don't rate or like him or think he is not a great player. He has many very good abilities but at the same time while they might be useful and helpful they are not necessarily needed at the level we are aiming to get to, Nice to have them yes but there are more important factors needed.

In a ideal world yes a very good player to have around but in the real world its not that vital and he had a bigger value to us at the time (your the one who keeps talking about living in the present) as a sell-able asset.

Sorry, but there is simply no logic to what you're saying!

Every sportsperson in a team sport has a specific role to play.
Be it defensive, creative or a bit of both. Mata was there to score and create and he was doing everything that he was brought in to do and paid to do. You cannot and should not ask for anything more than that!
It was nothing more than Jose not fancying him because he didn't run 20 miles a game, so he deliberately pushed him out.:
Jose's all about work, work, work. When that doesn't work he's left clueless and brutally exposed with nothing else to offer.

What next, get rid of your best defensive player because he doesn't score 10 goals a season?

Of course your going to think that due to your dislike of Jose or his style. Once again its all about your likes or dislikes and not based on reality

The manager (it don't matter who the manager is or what his style or his methods or if you like them or not) did not want to use a asset (as every manager does in any business) and was proven right at the time (and again it is you who keeps talking about living in the present) as our league position improved without him in the team.

Yes we could have used his talents and achieved the same results but that's only important to you as you are talking about your personal likes and dislikes.

Why the manager didn't like him is not important, It could have been because he did not run 20 miles or it could be because he has a funny haircut or because he ran over his pet dog. That's why you employ a manager to make decisions and you then judge those decisions based on results, The results of those decisions was proven the correct way to go, Yes those results could have been achieved with him playing and again it would have been the right decision just as it was proven to sell him

Of course every one has a role to play but that role is only important if the manager wants to use someone in that role, If and this what happened he felt he did not need anyone in that role then no matter how good the person is its not important. His role was no needed, You might feel or felt like it was but that has nothing to do with anything as you was not the manger or have any say in the process

But we won the league. We were Champions. Thats something very difficult.
Just imagine if you supported Liverpool. You never see that happening do you.
Never seeing a league title celebrated. How bad is that Dixie ? You tell me.
Strange how you don't like celebrating winning trophies Chelsea win.
A team being built for 6-8 seasons ?? Yet now you say half those players are not good enough. Make your mind up son, what is it. They were good then but not now ??
Your posts have no consistency whatsoever mate.

It's like groundhog day everytime Mata's name is brought up. This subject has been discussed to death. We get it Dixon, you resent the fact that Mourinho sold him. It happened over 2 years ago now, and the manager is no longer at the club. It's time to let it go.

I don't remember anything being built for the next 6-8 years before Mourinho arrived.
I'm not defending Jose's recent spell, he made mistakes and his behaviour was certainly bizarre at times. But we have been directionless since the 2009/10 season in my opinion.
Of course, the signing of Torres had a lot to do with it. A succession of managers trying to get Torres to perform stalled our progress.
Hopefully, Conte will be given the freedom to get the blend of the team right. It's no good asking a chef to cook a meal but not allowing him to select the ingredients. He will still have a lot of quality to work with, but I'm sure he will have other targets in mind to strengthen the squad.

Indeed, especially when he's done hardly anything at his current club compared to others who have left.

Our position improved because we finally had a center forward who scored goals.That alone will massively improve any team, as Suarez proved at Liverpool!
We had Terry injury free and playing as brilliantly as he ever had.
Matic was providing cover for the back four.
It had nothing whatsoever with us getting rid of a player voted player of the year by Chelsea fans! We would have been even better with him in our title winning season as Oscar contributed very little and Willian even less. Without Hazard and Costa we would have been desperately short of creativity and goals and could well have finished outside the top six.

The your memory has failed you!
It was widely known that Roman wanted a change of direction with a young team to be built on a high level of technical ability, creative flair and fast, exciting football. That is why we went out and bought Luiz, Oscar, Mata and Hazard. They should have been the beginning of a new era, but, unfortunately, Roman lost his nerve and decided to go back for short term gain and it was always only going to be short term gain.

Without your top scorer and most creative player you would have been short of goals and creativity? Is this really how low you are being forced to sink to find fault with winning the title?

Of course some were good enough but it was an extremely poor quality league and some of our players were very lucky to be in a championship winning team - A fading Ivanovich and Ramires. Oscar contributed next to nothing. Willian was terrible. Our bench was pretty weak. Cahill only good when JT is around.

Oh, and btw. I did celebrate our title win and I didn't care that the second half of the season was a bit of a grindfest. After too long without a title then winning one again is all that really matters.

Or it was not working like you seem to think it was?

The league was rubbish, The players was lucky.

The year had a 0 in it. There was a sight of a robin in spring blah blah blah blah

The only factor that is important is that we won the league.

All the other stuff is not backed up by any facts from last season and is just opinion and based on very little facts. Ivanovich was in the team of the season so performed very very well (but of course everyone else was rubbish I guess) so was Gary Cahill who was only good when he played with JT mmmm ok true but since JT played every league game I think its hard to judge how he played without him.

You lose any argument when you use the word "luck" when talking about any team or player that wins the league and when that player has played for most of the games in that season

How would we have been better with him?

He was not going to play.

It don't matter if you think he should or should not play but it was pretty clear for what ever reason (and again the reason is not relevant) the manager was not going to pick him, How was he going to make us better? He would have (and quite rightly) not been happy playing and that would have not helped us whatsoever.

Its like your suggestion of (might be wrong) of Eddie Howe for manager its based on no form of reality whatsoever. It's nothing but pipe dreams

A player is only useful if he is going to play, Mata clearly at the time was not going to be a regular player (maybe not even semi regular had he not even reached double figures appearance wise under Jose? ) and at best a player you bring on late in games etc no matter how good a player is if you get a offer of nearly 40m you take it (and the player demands a move).

Why are you talking about what would have happened if we did not have players? We had them. Are you suggesting we turned down 40m for a bench player who would have been unhappy incase something happened?

What if Roman was kidnapped? What if the manager decided to bet a million pounds on Chelsea being relegated and started to lose games on purpose what if the entire team got the swine flu?

So back to this team Jose destroyed that was going to be here for the next 6-8 seasons.
You now say virtually none are good enough anymore so what was this team you talk about.
Aside from your hero who left who else do you mean ?? Who are these players ?

As opposed to an old, technically inept team, who played dull, unimaginative football ?
Yes, I expect Roman did want that. Along with every other owner, director, manager, and fan of every team in the world. But I was talking about a definite, coherent plan to achieve those objectives. Have we ever really had such a plan ?
The annoying thing for me is that we were very nearly there with Mourinho first time around. Ranieri desrerves some credit for that as well of course, and Abramovich had spent several fortunes to finally get the right players in every position. We had a superb balance of power, skill and flair. I can never prove it, but in my opinion our team then would have ripped the current PSG team apart.
It's still a mystery to me why we couldn't have built on that team. We were matching the top clubs in Europe even if we had fallen short (unluckily on occasion) in the Champions League. Logically, all we needed was to do was add two or three players every season. No problem at all at the time with Chelsea's standing and the wages we could pay.

We was going in the right direction during Jose's first time but we made too many mistakes The sacking of Jose was more to do with the personality's involved then results |(while results was of course an issue). We got rid of a number of "squad players" which was a big part of of success at the time and don't think we really replaced them like for like and instead went down the route of putting all our eggs into the first team. we lost Peter Kenyon as well and I don't think we still have not replaced him to a good enough standard, Losing in Moscow in the way we did also IMO had a negative result on the team (and really was not lifted until Munich).

We lost our way and then of course we went down the route of being obsessed with how we play and being "Barca"like and along with the Torries issue it just all caught up with us

So you think a top club can completely change their footballing philosophy overnight? It takes time and some patience to do that! But seeing you didn't want Claudio to be given that time when we were on the up and up, then it's no surprise you think it was a good idea to abandon the transformation before it had hardly began.
I repeat. Now look at the mess we have!!!

it would have been better had he played Mata in the position he was so great at - No 10 behind the centre forward.
Instead, he put Oscar into Mata's role and pushed Mata out wide and you don't play someone with no pace out wide.
It is a statistical fact that Oscar did not score or create anywhere near the number of goals Mata was doing in the same position!