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MANCHESTER. — No sooner had Jose Mourinho arrived to take control of Manchester United were the eulogies written for Juan Mata’s Old Trafford career.

After all, Mourinho was the boss who jettisoned Chelsea’s two-time player of the year not six months after his return to London.

Not a fan of the diminutive Spaniard, Mourinho was ready to cut Mata adrift for the second time. It hasn’t panned out that way.

According to the man himself, Mourinho “didn’t sell Mata” at Chelsea, “because my job is not to buy and sell”. The player asked to leave after dwindling minutes in west London.

And then there are the differing styles with which his Chelsea and Manchester United teams set out to win football matches. Mourinho made it abundantly clear the “compact” efficiency which brought the 2014-15 Premier League title was not suited to Mata.

Then, the emphasis. “For my project at Chelsea he was a good player and at United he is a very good player.”

With this, Mourinho claims his management has changed to suit a squad used to endlessly recycling possession, going nowhere fast. He talks about a “process” of change, but retaining some of the ball-hungry appetite of the previous regime.

Good news indeed for Mata.

Saturday’s resounding beating of Leicester City was the first time since David Moyes was afforded £37,1 million to sign him two years ago that Mata has been picked ahead of Wayne Rooney in the No. 10 role. They appeared to miss his industry during defeat by Manchester City earlier in the month too.

It seems the wind of change sees Mata central to Mourinho’s plans in every sense.

The 28-year-old is a happy man at the moment, enjoying training under Mourinho and — while Leicester was his first league start for a month — pleased with the opportunity to begin a game from the off.

He was recalled to the Spain squad in August and is set to link up with them again for games against Italy and Albania.

“The football we want to play here is different,” Mourinho continued. “I think Mata is very adept to do that with his qualities. We need players with these qualities. He has found a very good natural habitat.”

It transpired that during his final tricky months at Stamford Bridge, Mata was moving further and further away from his “natural habitat”.

That fixture away at Southampton on New Year’s Day 2014, days before Moyes came calling and when he was hauled off just after half time, will forever be Mata’s nadir.

His final game in a Chelsea shirt saw him looking disgruntled on the bench as the Blues scored three second-half goals without him to bury the Saints.

There is a slight misconception about Mata’s time with Mourinho at Stamford Bridge, however. Only Oscar and Eden Hazard played more minutes than him in an attacking sense during that half a season.

It was not that he had been sidelined, but Chelsea’s way of winning was far removed with how the midfielder interacted with games.

He was wide, often actually hugging the right touchline. He does not possess the speed for that and wide of a three now means cutting inside. It is something which suits.

Mata, to his credit, accepted the difference in opinion and felt the time was right to move on. He was player of the year twice on the trot, but had not scored that season and was being pushed deeper and wider.

Now he finds himself in the goals at United, scoring the first away at Bournemouth on the opening weekend before finishing a quite excellent team move against Leicester.

The pitch map which showed him floundering on halfway at Southampton is long gone with Mourinho’s insistence on taking charge of possession at Old Trafford.

It is a start for Mata, who will want to add more assists to the one registered so far. Those will come with added games in behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic if he is afforded the opportunity on a regular basis.

Surprisingly, he is enjoying an identical number of touches per game in the two Mourinho seasons — albeit this one is merely five games old for Mata — but the difference comes with where they are.

More central, further forward, affecting the game. Slipping wide men in behind defenders, little one-twos with strikers.

A weaver, Mata might not play the final killer ball, but he sure as hell will open up defences with his ghosting movement inside the width of the opposition’s box. — Mailonline.