Marouane Fellaini | 2013/14 Performances

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He wasn't brilliant but he wasn't horrible either. He's still finding his feet. Did well to set up the goal too.

I do prefer him in a deeper role though. I don't think he's got the required qualities to play further forward. Especially with the other options we have for such a role.
 
The problem is that so far when he's played deep he's let his man just run off him repeatedly. It makes me wonder whether he's got a natural talent for defending or not.

If not then I seriously don't know where he'll fit in here. I'm prepared to give him time though, hopefully once he settles in he'll be fine.
 
I don't think I've ever seen anyone get penalised for 8 fouls before getting booked... that is some achievement to be fair to him.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I don't think I've ever seen anyone get penalised for 8 fouls before getting booked... that is some achievement to be fair to him.
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I remember him being a real pain when Everton beat us in the FA Cup semi-final in 2009. He fouled and fouled and fouled but only got a booking towards the end of the game. Yesterday was nowhere near that. And the one he got booked for seemed like Valencia's foul.
 
We're spoilt!

West Ham or Stoke would love him in their side. ;)
 
He was ok. He is still finding his feet. It will take a while before we see the best of him. If anyone can get the best out of him, it'll be Moyes anyway.
 
Bestie07 said:
I remember him being a real pain when Everton beat us in the FA Cup semi-final in 2009. He fouled and fouled and fouled but only got a booking towards the end of the game. Yesterday was nowhere near that. And the one he got booked for seemed like Valencia's foul.
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At least half of them weren't fouls... but then the ref was a bit of a weirdo. There was that hilariously crap decision of "high foot" when Fellaini lifted his leg about a foot off the ground... which was only topped by Evra getting penalised for being kicked in the thigh.
 
Theon said:
Pretty sure I've seen you criticising others for saying similar things about Ashley Young. Very bizzare.
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I criticise the constant need to turn every discussion of a player into a dig at him. Almost every thread you'll go into has some dig at him, not to mention the whining about him before a game is even played and how everything that goes wrong ends up being the fault of him or Valencia regardless of what's actually happened in the game. We've even had one poster saying that he wants him to play badly. That's beyond ridiculous.
 
He was pretty poor last night to be honest. Things he's been good at and you'd expect for him to be good at, he was rubbish at yesterday.

He kept losing possession and was bullied off the ball by much smaller players to often. He's usually pretty good at bringing the ball out the air and keeping hold of it as well, but every-time he tried it yesterday, it was either a poor touch or it was stolen off him.
 
charleysurf said:
No, having seen all the shit Carrick got, all those opinions saying that Fellani can never be a good player for United carry about as much weight as a Jamie Redknapp sound bite. Players can improve.
Time will tell. Maybe he'll improve, maybe he won't. We will know by the end of the season.
I hope he does. I want any player we have to improve. Because we only have the squad we have. I'm sorry the hipsters don't.
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I've seen this accusation thrown out a few times. It happened during the Summer too. Hipster? As a reference to someone who doesn't rate Fellaini? What the feck is hipsterish about not rating an uncoordinated afro? If anything, being a fan of Fellaini is more hipsterish, given how unconventional he is.

Also, what's this notion that the only people who don't fancy Fellaini at United much are forum hanger ons, who will soon feck off at the sign of a few barren years. The presumptions made on here border on fecking pathetic, at times, and are normally made by top red bell ends who think they're better fans than anyone else.

I've never rated Fellaini, I never wanted him here. I don't plan on fecking off and supporting anyone else any time soon, and I'm pretty sure I ain't a hipster, so take your presumptions and shove them up your hole.
 
I just think the problem lies with Carrick and Fellaini being too similar in the fact they are both slow and near enough static players I.e. you dont see them running past players and covering a lot of ground on the pitch getting up and down.

I would like to see Fellaini being paired up with Clevz, with Fellaini doing the Carrick job of sitting back.

I think he is a good assit to the team and has been OK so far but lets give him time to settle in and then judge him.
 
charleysurf said:
At what point did I say his performances so far could not be criticized? That he did not need to improve?
Show me.

My point is only for those who have written him off already. Those who say he will never improve. And the pattern with those posters seems to be that they are pissed we did not get Herrera.
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More bullshit from you. Are people not allowed to hold an opinion, and stick to it? Some people didn't rate Fellaini at Everton, and didn't want us to sign him. Should they re-set their opinion, and make a new knee jerk opinion, purely because he's signed for United? Are they not allowed to continue to hold a long standing opinion? If United signed Clint Hill would we all be expected to suddenly rate him, even though we all know he's shite?

I've watched Herrera play a handful of times, I know little about him or what he'd bring to United. I'm not devastated we didn't sign him. I still think Fellaini is shite.
 
.J4Me$. said:
I just think the problem lies with Carrick and Fellaini being too similar in the fact they are both slow and near enough static players I.e. you dont see them running past players and covering a lot of ground on the pitch getting up and down.

I would like to see Fellaini being paired up with Clevz, with Fellaini doing the Carrick job of sitting back.

I think he is a good assit to the team and has been OK so far but lets give him time to settle in and then judge him.
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So drop Carrick for Fellaini? Sounds immense.
 
The Neviller said:
Also, what's this notion that the only people who don't fancy Fellaini at United much are forum hanger ons, who will soon feck off at the sign of a few barren years. The presumptions made on here border on fecking pathetic, at times, and are normally made by top red bell ends who think they're better fans than anyone else.
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Agreed! I do rate Fellaini by the way, think he will come good once he settles in or at worst be a good squad option. Hasn't been good so far though.
 
I'm still optimistic about Fellaini at United. I think he can be a great addition to our squad and a player to add a bit of strength and size to our midfield when needed but so far he has been underwhelming. Maybe he's just taking time to settle in but at the moment he looks a bit over awed by the whole thing. I mean on the ball, he gave away so much possession last night. His passing was off too. When compared to Carrick he looks rather poor. Although, that's probably an unfair comparison. I just hope he gets a bit of confidence soon and realises the only way to make it at Manchester United is to start playing like a United player.

Anyway he does give us something different to what our midfielders from last season gave us but being different from our other midfielders isn't enough. I do like him as a player though and hope he improves for us shortly.
 
.J4Me$. said:
I just think the problem lies with Carrick and Fellaini being too similar in the fact they are both slow and near enough static players I.e. you dont see them running past players and covering a lot of ground on the pitch getting up and down.
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That's pretty obvious I would guess

.J4Me$. said:
I would like to see Fellaini being paired up with Clevz, with Fellaini doing the Carrick job of sitting back.
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Would that be at Carrick's expense? I made a similar post yesterday on how the two almost seem to be stepping on each other's toes due to their style of play. Offensively the team suffers from having the two of them start a game as they play way too deep and are not mobile enough. This forces our forwards to drop deeper and occupy the space that the midfield ought to do. Unfortunately this means that our forwards spend less time in the attacking third of the pitch where there ought to. Fellaini has his qualities but I don't think they are compatible with the way the team is set-up; the way us fans have grown accustomed to the United style of play; or the attributes of other players currently in the squad.

To put it bluntly, Fellaini is not the answer to our midfield woes and if anything his signing and the manager's desire to justify it has thus far contributed to the detriment of our attacking play.
 
charleysurf said:
Ha, he was written off before he even played a game. Thank feck the people who go to games will give a player a month or two!
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Stop being such a dick. It is possible to do that to a player who you have watched in the league for years. In the Fellaini thred that was made well before this summer, would it have been a crime to have been against his signing and have written him off a year ago? Or is it now just because we signed him, against many people's wishes - that they should reserve judgement on him?

Would you give Lee Cattermole a couple of seasons with us before you decide whether you want him in the team?
 
I wonder how many midfielders who have a strong frame and are good in air does real/barca/barcelona have
 
He wasnt as bad as many as many are making out, but he did give the ball away too much which will have to stop.

Was a different role than we have seen him in so far - on average he was effectively our furthest forward player after RvP, but still very much a midfielder so almost box to box.

Got the vital assist and I think it is no coincidence that we conceeded after he went off - in hindsight should have subbed him for Jones rather than Giggs to close the game out
 
Revan said:
Why are people acting like Fellaini was signed from Andromeda galaxy and no-one has ever seen him before? People aren't writting him off because of three awful performances, but after 5 years when he looked okay in central midfield in Everton, but nothing more than that.]People are acting in here like he has never kicked a ball in his life. Furthermore, anyone excepting him to just slide into top mode in our team when he never had a pre-season with us, was injured during Everton's pre season and has to adjust to our training methods and get used to our team, after three games, is a true idiot.
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Rozay said:
Stop being such a dick. It is possible to do that to a player who you have watched in the league for years. In the Fellaini thred that was made well before this summer, would it have been a crime to have been against his signing and have written him off a year ago? Or is it now just because we signed him, against many people's wishes - that they should reserve judgement on him?

Would you give Lee Cattermole a couple of seasons with us before you decide whether you want him in the team?
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Yes.
 
devilish said:
I wonder how many midfielders who have a strong frame and are good in air does real/barca/barcelona have
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We aren't as good as those teams though. Would Carrick get into those teams? No, but he's still by far our best midfielder and one of our most important players. A certain midfielder with a strong frame who is powerful and good in the air at City has been the best in his position in the entire league over the last few years.
 
walsh said:
We aren't as good as those teams though. Would Carrick get into those teams? No, but he's still by far our best midfielder and one of our most important players. A certain midfielder with a strong frame who is powerful and good in the air at City has been the best in his position in the entire league over the last few years.
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We'll only get to their level by bringing in better players though. You're right to point out that Toure is an excellent player with those exact qualities. If Fellaini was as good as Toure then there'd be no complaints over the attributes he brings. The problem is, he's not as good as Toure and he has never played to that level, or even looked like he had the potential to play to that level, at least in my opinion and those of some of his other critics. Give him time to show his best here, sure, but if we've never seen anything to suggest his best is good enough why pretend otherwise? It's not knee jerk criticism, it's just a reasoned assessment of the player we've signed.

That's not to say he can't be a useful option for us, or that I don't hope I'm wrong.
 
He has a slight Darron Gibson energy about him but........he gives us so much at set pieces and could still reach another level as he hasn't even settled yet so fingers crossed he will become more Keane than Gibson
 
walsh said:
We aren't as good as those teams though. Would Carrick get into those teams? No, but he's still by far our best midfielder and one of our most important players. A certain midfielder with a strong frame who is powerful and good in the air at City has been the best in his position in the entire league over the last few years.
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Toure and Fellaini are both tall that's about where the comparisons should end.
 
Ringo 07 said:
He has a slight Darron Gibson energy about him but........he gives us so much at set pieces and could still reach another level as he hasn't even settled yet so fingers crossed he will become more Keane than Gibson
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That's possibly the widest range I've ever seen a footballer be placed in.

"Fingers crossed he's more like one of our greatest ever players, and not completely gash".
 
walsh said:
We aren't as good as those teams though. Would Carrick get into those teams? No, but he's still by far our best midfielder and one of our most important players. A certain midfielder with a strong frame who is powerful and good in the air at City has been the best in his position in the entire league over the last few years.
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To be fair I can see Carrick compete for a first team place with Busquets. Toure offers much more then air dominance and some nasty elbow hits
 
.J4Me$. said:
I just think the problem lies with Carrick and Fellaini being too similar in the fact they are both slow and near enough static players I.e. you dont see them running past players and covering a lot of ground on the pitch getting up and down.

I would like to see Fellaini being paired up with Clevz, with Fellaini doing the Carrick job of sitting back.

I think he is a good assit to the team and has been OK so far but lets give him time to settle in and then judge him.
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This would be absolutely horrible. Fellaini is a terrible sitting midfielder. He's slow like Carrick but lacks the positional awareness and the passing ability.

Fellaini never excelled in a 2 man midfield at Everton, which is why its baffling to see Moyes try him in that role now. One would assume he actually knew how he utilized the player at Everton, but it appears not. Fellaini was best at Everton in an advanced midfield role where he worked as the third midfielder, both adding an extra man to help out the midfield duo while also working as a target man. Obviously at United, where we have a quality number 10 option in Rooney, he won't be playing that role, which is a problem because he has to adapt to a new role now if he wants to do a good job for us.

So far hes shown that he is not good enough to play in a midfield two alongside Carrick and dominate, which shouldnt surprise anyone. Technically and ability wise I would put him behind Anderson, who has been tried and failed repeatedly in the same role. He would probably look a lot better if we played a midfield 3, with him as the man ahead of the sitting pair, but then that begs the question how our overall system would look, because thats awfully close to the position Rooney is playing...

I dont really see Fellaini having a natural position in our side, except when Rooney is injured, but even then Kagawa should play the advanced midfield position ahead of him.
 
Brosstan said:
This would be absolutely horrible. Fellaini is a terrible sitting midfielder. He's slow like Carrick but lacks the positional awareness and the passing ability.

Fellaini never excelled in a 2 man midfield at Everton, which is why its baffling to see Moyes try him in that role now. One would assume he actually knew how he utilized the player at Everton, but it appears not. Fellaini was best at Everton in an advanced midfield role where he worked as the third midfielder, both adding an extra man to help out the midfield duo while also working as a target man. Obviously at United, where we have a quality number 10 option in Rooney, he won't be playing that role, which is a problem because he has to adapt to a new role now if he wants to do a good job for us.

So far hes shown that he is not good enough to play in a midfield two alongside Carrick and dominate, which shouldnt surprise anyone. Technically and ability wise I would put him behind Anderson, who has been tried and failed repeatedly in the same role. He would probably look a lot better if we played a midfield 3, with him as the man ahead of the sitting pair, but then that begs the question how our overall system would look, because thats awfully close to the position Rooney is playing...

I don't really see Fellaini having a natural position in our side, except when Rooney is injured, but even then Kagawa should play the advanced midfield position ahead of him.
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Good post (you made some good posts in the Kagawa thread too which I was going to reply to).
Anderson for me is poor in a midfield two because of his positional indiscipline, propensity to ball watch, not staying with his man and not busting a gut to get back and help defend which are all things Fellaini has done repeatedly in the games he's played here. The last thing we needed was another below par CM who was going to have to learn the role.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I don't think I've ever seen anyone get penalised for 8 fouls before getting booked... that is some achievement to be fair to him.
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Fellaini's fouls weren't even that bad, certainly that one on the edge of their box where he was judged to have pulled the opposition player's shirt was nothing.

Luiz Gustavo got booked after 9 fouls in the Champions League semi-final vs Real Madrid. I remember watching him hack people down continuously, until finally in the 102nd minute he got booked!
 
LR7 said:
Good post (you made some good posts in the Kagawa thread too which I was going to reply to).
Anderson for me is poor in a midfield two because of his positional indiscipline, propensity to ball watch, not staying with his man and not busting a gut to get back and help defend which are all things Fellaini has done repeatedly in the games he's played here. The last thing we needed was another below par CM who was going to have to learn the role.
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And even against poor opposition where we're not absolutely dependant on a midfielder being that solid defensively - Fellaini would offer next to nothing in an attacking sense for us compared to Anderson.

I honestly cannot wrap my head around what Moyes plans to do with this signing. It strikes me as a total panic buy since we didn't get a decent midfielder in.
 
marjen said:
And even against poor opposition where we're not absolutely dependant on a midfielder being that solid defensively - Fellaini would offer next to nothing in an attacking sense for us compared to Anderson.

I honestly cannot wrap my head around what Moyes plans to do with this signing. It strikes me as a total panic buy since we didn't get a decent midfielder in.
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I agree, and if I had to pick one of them to play every game this season alongside Carrick, it'd be Anderson.
I think Moyes always wanted him, but I'd guess that if we had gotten another of our targets Moyes would never have ended up spending £27.5m on him. In all honesty I'd rather Jones play the DM role in the few games we might need it because he's not bullied so easily, doesn't let people burst past him and knows the role better than Fellaini, despite being a CB. I'm not saying we would have beaten City if Jones had played but he'd have put up a better fight in midfield than Fellaini did.
 
People should be disappointed with Moyes so far not Fellaini. It has always been obvious that Fellaini isn't a mobile player - if we wanted that Gustavo was on the market for a cheaper sum. Moyes opted to go for Fellaini who is the opposite of mobile, but much stronger and better at heading the ball.

Moyes has to find a strategy where Fellaini covers a small but important area with his commanding strength and heading ability. Fellaini can't cover the ground needed for a 2 men central midfield defensively, he is too heavy to be efficient at that compared to the mobile DM's.

So playing a flat 4 man midfield line with Fellaini is pointless as that requires the CM's to be immensely mobile. However if we play a 4-1-4-1 defense with Fellaini in a free-role centrally inside the box and slightly in front of the box then he will be a monster.

I don't think it is right to blame Fellaini though as has been Moyes decision to play one of the stronger and heavier midfielders in the world as a "mobile midfielder".
 
Annahnomoss said:
People should be disappointed with Moyes so far not Fellaini. It has always been obvious that Fellaini isn't a mobile player - if we wanted that Gustavo was on the market for a cheaper sum. Moyes opted to go for Fellaini who is the opposite of mobile, but much stronger and better at heading the ball.

Moyes has to find a strategy where Fellaini covers a small but important area with his commanding strength and heading ability. Fellaini can't cover the ground needed for a 2 men central midfield defensively, he is too heavy to be efficient at that compared to the mobile DM's.

So playing a flat 4 man midfield line with Fellaini is pointless as that requires the CM's to be immensely mobile. However if we play a 4-1-4-1 defense with Fellaini in a free-role centrally inside the box and slightly in front of the box then he will be a monster.

I don't think it is right to blame Fellaini though as has been Moyes decision to play one of the stronger and heavier midfielders in the world as a "mobile midfielder".
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The trouble is that to be effective in that role we need creativity. Fellaini may be the mid EPL club wet dream but he wont be very effective in Europe
 
devilish said:
The trouble is that to be effective in that role we need creativity. Fellaini may be the mid EPL club wet dream but he wont be very effective in Europe
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Well I think he shouldn't even sniff on the midfield positions if we play a flat 4 man midfield as he doesn't have those creative and offensive abilities like you say.

However he is more than good enough to play in a pure destroyer role behind a 4 man midfield to allow the other 4 midfielders and the wing-backs to be more offensive and creative.
 
So we still have people saying that Fellaini is a destroyer and Gustavo is the box-to-box centre mid. Seriously? Fellaini can not be a destroyer. He is not that kind of defensive player and never has been. At Liege, at Everton and for Belgium he has always been the one getting forward from midfield.
 
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