Juan Mata wins the Barclays Player of the Month award for October, to no one's surprise

In a less than surprising turn of events, Chelsea playmaker extraordinaire Juan Mata has won the Barclays Player of the Month award for the month of October. Congratulations!

The 24-year-old Mata becomes the first Chelsea player in over a year to win the award - not since David Luiz in March 2011 has a Blues player been recognized. It was hard to argue with this one though, Matinha has been receiving accolades from all corners of the league. A string of excellent October performances in the league (rated by the WAGNH community, on average, at a 9.1) has seen the little Spanish wizard collect three goals (one of which was the winner at White Hart Lane) as well as three assists in just three matches. As the Triumvirate can attest, good things do come in threes!

Outside of the clunker of a team effort in Donetsk, Mata has practically lit October aflame. Whoscored.com has him on five goals and four assists in all competitions:

Of course Mata, humble as ever, just wanted to talk about the team:

I'm very grateful for this award. It's very important to keep going and improve because I am still young.

The most important thing is the team and I am always trying to do my best to help the team.

-Juan Mata via chelseafc.com

Meanwhile, Sir Alex Ferguson collected the managerial version of this award, for approximately the umpteenth time. Mark Clattenburg was unavailable for comment.