Mata Details Pre-West Brom Routine

In his latest blog, Juan Mata gives us an insight into his and United's preparations for Monday night's game against West Brom...

Today I’m writing to you as we travel to Birmingham on the team bus. As you know we play against West Brom this Monday, so here I am, and I’m going to share with you some of the things that have happened during the week.

I want to tell you how is my last day before playing a game. When we play away from home, and this is the case now, we usually meet up on the eve of the game at Carrington’s training ground. We have our last training session and then we have lunch together. We travel in the afternoon. Depending on the destination, sometimes we go by plane, by train, or this time by bus as it takes less than two hours to get to Birmingham.

Upon arrival, we check in at the hotel and have dinner. Once we finish we have different options, such as treatment with the physios, chatting with the team-mates or going straight to the room. In my case, I like to spend some time on my own, just chilling before going to bed. I usually carry my laptop to watch a movie or a TV series. And I also try to get mentally ready for the game, visualising different plays and the way the match could be.

The day before a game I like to sleep a lot so I don’t go to bed very late. Today I’m writing this earlier than usual, because normally I work on the blog after dinner, when all the games are finished. But to me it’s very important to feel rested during the most important moment of the week.

This week has been very good in terms of training; I hope we are able to show that on the pitch. A third consecutive win would be really important. The last two took a lot of effort and I’m sure it will be the same at The Hawthorns. I hope we can make it.