In the basement room at his father’s tapas restaurant in Manchester city centre, Juan Mata seems a little downhearted.



He is there to promote his new autobiography, Suddenly A Footballer, but he cannot hide the anguish caused by the ongoing turmoil at Manchester United. He trots out a line from the Spanish NBA star Ricky Rubio — “Never too high, never too low” — but it has become more and more difficult in the modern age, he says, to keep such a balanced perspective.



“Results have always been important, no doubt about that,” Mata says. “But now, because of the repercussions that every result has, with so many platforms where football can be spoken about, and all the social media and the new channels that didn’t exist before, it makes the whole thing even bigger. Every result is bigger, every mistake is bigger, every goal is bigger than it used to be.



“With the repercussions of football now, it makes...