Manchester United's forgotten man deserved a better swan song at Old Trafford

The eight-year anniversary of Juan Mata's arrival at Manchester United just recently passed but you'd be forgiven for forgetting he is still at the club.

Only David de Gea and Phil Jones have been in the United first-team longer than Mata, yet even the injury-ravaged Jones - who had spent two years on the sidelines - has played more minutes in the Premier League than him this season.

That's not particularly hard as even this journalist has played the same amount of minutes in England's top division in the current campaign as one of its most talented playmakers ever: precisely zero.

It's quite sad to see. Well, sad not to see, rather. A player of Mata's immense quality and such a great servant to United deserves a much better final swan song.

Towards the end of last season, it looked as though the Spaniard would be leaving and it made a lot of sense.

He had recently turned 33 and, while still talented, obviously didn't have the engine to be a regular in the first-team any longer. With United holding so many attacking options, especially with Bruno Fernandes becoming a talisman in the attacking-midfield role, Mata's playing time understandably decreased.

By over 1,000 minutes, in fact, but he was still a fairly regular presence with 18 appearances across the season and half of them coming in the Premier League. He started on the final day of the season against Wolves and scored what transpired to be the winner from the penalty spot.

A winning goal on his final domestic appearance, before being substituted for an up and coming creative-midfielder who would love to follow in his footsteps in Hannibal, would have been a fitting farewell to a player who is held in such high regard by the Old Trafford faithful.

His overhead