Moyes: Mata the first of many

David Moyes spoke exclusively to MUTV after the club completed Juan Mata's transfer from Chelsea. Here's what the boss had to say about the Reds' record signing...

How pleased are you to have signed Juan Mata?

I’m really pleased. He’s someone we’ve been interested in for a long time. We couldn’t say much about it but he was certainly on our radar for a couple of months in the hope that we could get him. I never felt we would get that opportunity because I wasn’t sure that Chelsea would ever sell him to us. Thankfully we got there and I’m delighted he’s here.

How surprised are you that Chelsea have allowed their Player of the Year for the past two seasons to join one of their traditional rivals?

I’m a bit surprised because it’s not something that tends to happen especially between Premier League teams. We’ve got a really exciting player and one I’m looking forward to working with. He did a great job for Chelsea in the last few years with his goalscoring and assists and I’m looking forward to seeing him in the red jersey now and doing it for us.

It’s notoriously difficult to get top-class players in during January but surely he is the best available?

I think he is. I said at the start I didn’t think there would be many signings even for ourselves. It wasn’t meant in any way to be negative, it was just the truth. We had been working behind the scenes and seeing if it would be possible and all credit to Ed Woodward and the rest of the staff at the club because they went and got us the player. As I said before I’m looking forward to it and the players are looking forward to it. We’ve lacked a bit of creativity and imagination in the final third of the pitch and I really hope Juan can deliver quickly for us.

People have spoken about how excited they are at seeing him link up with the likes of Wayne, Robin and Adnan…

I want to build an exciting team. That’s always the way I’ve wanted my football to be played and I’ve not known it any other way. I want to win and give the supporters something to shout about because I’ve not done that often enough. What I will say is this is the first of many more to come in time. I’m looking forward to Juan being the start of it.

Do you think Juan will relish the pressure that comes with being the record signing at a club of this magnitude?

I think when you play as well as he can then he can handle the ball and deal with the ball. When you come to Manchester United you are tested a little bit – the players will be the first ones to test him when we get him training because they’ll want to see what he can bring. I’m sure they’ll make him aware of what we stand for and what the traditions there are here. He’s a Spanish international and we’ve signed him up for a long time now. Hopefully we’ll get him playing and showing exactly what he can do.

Would you like to get him playing on Tuesday night against Cardiff?

Yes because he’s not too far away from [full] fitness. I know he has missed a few games and maybe not started quite as many games as he’d have liked, but I’d like to get him involved if I can against Cardiff.

You said he’ll be the first of many but do you think we’ll have any more ins or outs in January?

I don’t think we’ll have any more in January. I’m still working on it and looking to do things – we know exactly what we’d like to do and if it changes in the last week which sometimes it can do then we’ll try. I hope it will be the first of some new signings that will arrive, but more likely in the summer.

Finally, will the signing of Juan give everyone a good boost?

I think undoubtedly we could all do with a bit of a lift. We’ve not done as well as we’d have liked to have done. We see this as the start. We have to look to improve and I’m going to try to bring in some new players to make that happen. As I said, Juan is the first of hopefully several.




So, expect some signings in the summer then.