Marouane Fellaini | 2013/14 Performances

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Not unless his performances significantly improve (or he changes his entire footballing persona to become some kind of running midfielder). Moyes isn't an idiot, and if he really thinks Carrick and Fellaini can play on their own in midfield I worry.

Moyes paid £27million for Fellaini, of course he sees him as a starter next to Carrick. What are you talking about?

Why would he have bought him for that fee if the intention wasn't for him to be a regular?

The first part is right though - but its an entirely different point to the rest of your post. If he doesn't improve then he probably won't play, certainly not beyond this season. But that doesn't have any relevance to either 1) the initial intentions of Moyes when he signed him 2) the potential for him and Carrick to partner each other when both in form.
 
Moyes paid £27million for Fellaini, of course he sees him as a starter next to Carrick. What are you talking about?

Why would he have bought him for that fee if the intention wasn't for him to be a regular?

The first part is right though - but its an entirely different point to the rest of your post. If he doesn't improve then he probably won't play, certainly not beyond this season. But that doesn't have any relevance to either 1) the initial intentions of Moyes when he signed him 2) the potential for him and Carrick to partner each other when both in form.

Aye, I acknowledge that Moyes probably intended for him to start alongside Carrick. I dare say that he didn't realise how bad they'd be together. Doesn't explain when Fellaini is starting so sporadically though. We'll put that down to his woeful performances so far shall we (hence him saying that he'll get out of this rut - acknowledging his own poor form)? The difference is that I reckon you put his poor form down to things like moving to a new club and settling in, whereas I put it down to him not being a particularly good midfielder.

One of those things though isn't it? We can talk all day about this, but only time will tell if he'll actually make anything of himself at United in central midfield alongside Carrick. I doubt he'll fulfil any of those.
 
Oh god, I still don't understand why we signed him.... imho he's definitely not shown that he's up to the level... I prefer Cleverley or even Ando.
 
I think the title should be a recurring update on the state of his afro. That's always my main concern with him.
 
People who are dissapointed with our summer transfer window seem to be taking out all their aggression on Fellaini and Moyes. Get over yourselves. He has only played a handful of games.
 
Personally think he needs to play INSTEAD of Carrick, rather than with him to actually show his worth.

He needs a mobile player next to him also to help do the pressing, pairing 2 slow players together in midfield is just a bad idea if you want to press high.

I think tonight if he starts deeper in midfield with Giggs / Anderson ahead of him he should be able to do the sweeping job quite comfortably.
 
Personally think he needs to play INSTEAD of Carrick, rather than with him to actually show his worth.

He needs a mobile player next to him also to help do the pressing, pairing 2 slow players together in midfield is just a bad idea if you want to press high.

I think tonight if he starts deeper in midfield with Giggs / Anderson ahead of him he should be able to do the sweeping job quite comfortably.


He needs to work on his defensive side a lot before we can think of playing him instead of carrick. He loses his man far too easily and doesnt track runs well enough for my liking.
 
Personally think he needs to play INSTEAD of Carrick, rather than with him to actually show his worth.

He needs a mobile player next to him also to help do the pressing, pairing 2 slow players together in midfield is just a bad idea if you want to press high.

I think tonight if he starts deeper in midfield with Giggs / Anderson ahead of him he should be able to do the sweeping job quite comfortably.

Agreed. I'd be shocked if Fellaini and Carrick formed a succesful partnership. It never looked good on paper and it's already looked like a disaster at times on the pitch IMO. It seems to offer a severe lack of movement, pace and creativity.
 
Agreed. I'd be shocked if Fellaini and Carrick formed a succesful partnership. It never looked good on paper and it's already looked like a disaster at times on the pitch IMO. It seems to offer a severe lack of movement, pace and creativity.

Neither of them is the ideal football player if you look at the physics. A midfielder need to be small and quick. Sometimes these sort of players work well on the pitch, like Van Bommel, Yaya Toure, Viera and of course Carrick + some more guys that I can't think of right now. But the thing is it was never a combination of these tall players together on the pitch.
 
Personally think he needs to play INSTEAD of Carrick, rather than with him to actually show his worth.

He needs a mobile player next to him also to help do the pressing, pairing 2 slow players together in midfield is just a bad idea if you want to press high.

I think tonight if he starts deeper in midfield with Giggs / Anderson ahead of him he should be able to do the sweeping job quite comfortably.

I do agree with this mostly, but TBH he hasn't shown much in the defensive way of things to suggest that he can perform as the defensive half of a midfield pairing at our level. The times that he's played so far, he seemed to be used in a sort of box-to-box role instead, and the defensive side of his game so far has been found wanting too often. For a guy who claims his best role is a DM, and someone of his physical stature, he sure doesn't put himself about much to me.

Will be interesting to see how he lines up for us tonight against Sociedad if he's playing.
 
Personally think he needs to play INSTEAD of Carrick, rather than with him to actually show his worth.

He needs a mobile player next to him also to help do the pressing, pairing 2 slow players together in midfield is just a bad idea if you want to press high.

I think tonight if he starts deeper in midfield with Giggs / Anderson ahead of him he should be able to do the sweeping job quite comfortably.

I'd rather play with 10 men than start Anderson
 
I'd rather play with 10 men than start Anderson

It's a squad role, and let's be honest on a day when he is up for it, he can be a good player.

By the way guy's I was not suggesting drop Carrick for Fellaini, more to the fact that only 1 of them can play at 1 time together in a midfield, unless in a 3 man IMO.
 
Anderson is not as poor as people suggest.

He is. He's sloppy with his passing, he's not defensively aware enough, he doesn't track back and he offers very little going forward apart from the occasional driving run at a tired defence.
 
I don't think Fellaini has been poor tonight but I think he could offer a lot more. Decent enough job so far.

For whoever takes corners, can we try and swing it in somewhere near Fellaini, it seems every corner, we do our best to get it as far away from Fellaini as possible.
 
Done alright, just looks a bit afraid. Think he'll be far more influential once he becomes more confident.
 
It's like he only has 2 speed settings. Walking and Light Jog.

Aside from the afro and poor first touch you'd swear it was Berbatov swanning around in midfield not giving a feck.
 
Yeah he looks much more comfortable in his preferred defensive midfielder role when someone else moves about and actually passes and carries the ball.

Still has managed to give away the ball in horrendous positions a couple of times, but yeah, much better I agree.
 
Fellaini's a properly nasty massive fecker isn't he? Even the clean challenges he gets into seems nasty on his end. He's just so gangly. Showed pretty decent skills on the ball though. One of our better performers in the half, though I still think he needs to release the ball slightly quicker and with more zip in them. Still under and over hitting passes. Really seems like Moyes is using him in a box-to-box role instead of a specialist defensive mid who sits back and breaks up play. Interesting.
 
Doesn't make himself enough available for a pass from Vida/Rio

He's got virtually no mobility.

Doesn't get himself about the pitch fast enough.

But he's still better when he's playing as the defensive minded midfielder as opposed to alongside Carrick.
 
Good half from him, with regard to how utterly gash he has been recently. Looks to have a bit of confidence back in his game.
 
He was decent again. I think we could have picked up some chump for a few million who could do what he is doing though. It's just nothing special is it?
 
I'm struggling to see how he's a £30m player. I hope he's got more in his locker than this.

Well he obviously isn't a 30m player, I don't think anyone on the planet actually thinks he is.

Surprised to see people praising him for that first half. He wasn't terrible but that's about it. That isn't even close to as good as he can be, which even then isn't amazing.

He will continue to get better here, but so far tonight he hasn't been particularly impressive.
 
flicked over to see highlights of Juve game and it saddens you to see how confident and effective Pogba is.....

Fellaini has been ok - not as good as someone like Darren Fletcher and it makes you wonder were we wise to not meet Pogba's demands even if they were out of our pay structure for a young player

Fellaini will need to start showing much more if he is to justify the money we paid on him - hard to believe he cost as much as he did
 
I'm a bit depressed if that's the standard we now regard as good.

Glad it's not just me.

Granted it's not just him but it's been such a lazy performance from us so far. Everything's been so slow and he's been a big part of that.
 
It's no good harping on about the price now as he'll never prove he's worth half of it - but that isn't his fault, he didn't set the price, we did.

What you have to do is analyze his performance, which today is a decent performance from a defensive midfielder. Not spectacular, but decent and solid.
 
Looks a lot better in that half - making progress, or just more comfortable at the pace in the Champions League?
 
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