Last time I checked they were something like 22/1 the same as England so it's good to see people are taking them more seriously now.
Marouane Fellaini | 2013/14 Performances
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
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Not sure if it's all justified though. I think we are being hyped and overestimated a bit at the moment, especially in the media and with foreigners. Most Belgians are still quite modest about our chances at the World Cup.
I think getting to the second round would already be a good result for the coming world cup. After that, everything depends on the draw of course.
I think getting to the second round would already be a good result for the coming world cup. After that, everything depends on the draw of course.
I agree for the most part. Thursday showed we still have a lot of room for improvement and even though Colombia is a strong team nowadays, there are still better teams out there. I do believe that we should definitely get out of the group stages with the team we have now. But as you said, what happens next depends on the draw and a bit of luck and form.
As for Fellaini.. he really should have scored.
Our main problem is that the talent we have in the squad isn't distributed that well over the different positions on the pitch. We have great options in central midfield, the attacking midfield positions and the central defence. And we have two great goalkeepers as well. But both back positions are a real problem, so much that we have to play central defenders there. And the striker position isn't as good as well in my opinion. Benteke is ok, but not a world beater. And Lukaku just isn't that good in my opinion.
Interesting to hear you say that. Benteke and Lukaku are generally considered absolute beasts, and then you've got people like Hazard, Mirallas and De Bruyne who can play as deeper forwards (no 10 etc). Sounds OK from the outside!
Myeah, maybe I'm acting a bit spoilt already. Compared to Belgium's usual set of strikers over the past two decades, they're great of course. Especially Benteke. But they're not in the same tier as the likes of Hazard, Witsel and Kompany are in their respective positions. Benteke is great as a target man and might have a nose for goal, but he's not the best footballer. Lukaku is worse than Benteke in all aspects in my opinion. My biggest problem with him is that his ball handling is just so slow and often very clumsy. Especially when you're dominating play, Lukaku has proven to be pretty useless. He just can't operate in close spaces. He can be handy when you have a lot of space behind the opposition defence though.
Belgium misses a real world class striker. If we had one of those, we could really compete with those top 6 nations in the world. At the moment however, the lack of scoring ability in this team is a real problem.
Another problem we have I think is a lack of depth. Players like Hazard, Dembele, De Bruyne, Mertens, Benteke etc. all want the ball too much. They're often dropping back to ask for it and want to beat their man with the ball at their feet, instead of making forward runs without the ball. This often leads to a very slow and boring play and a lack of goalscoring chances. A lot of our goals in the qualifyers were a result of great crosses from the wing (often from De Bruyne). But when he's not on his best form (as is the case now), Belgium creates very little chances. The only one who's really good at making those forward runs and opening up the opposition defence is Mirallas.
A friend of mine sent me this via facebook. It cannot do well to Fellaini's confidence right ?
http://thepeoplesperson.com/moyes-e...-going-to-be-the-answer-for-uniteds-midfield/
http://thepeoplesperson.com/moyes-e...-going-to-be-the-answer-for-uniteds-midfield/
Haha quality writing there, we bid for two people with identical names!
If these quotes are true then Moyes did feck up big time. As much as i dont like the Afroman he needs to know that he has managers confidence.
When it comes to Fellaini...im not surprised one bit. Anyone with half brain knew it was a panic buy.
When it comes to Fellaini...im not surprised one bit. Anyone with half brain knew it was a panic buy.
Don't really see what he said that was too wrong, just said that whilst they wanted fellaini for his style they were also looking to bring in another sort of player. Didn't say Fellaini was second choice or anything.
I'm sure Fellaini knows Moyes has confidence in him; he wouldn't have signed him twice and spent over 40 million on him if he didn't. It's up to Fellaini now to show what he's capable of.
It certainly seems so when you read this part
“But he wasn’t always going to be the answer because there were other types and other players who we were considering as well. But he was the one who was available and who we could get at the time."
Never said he wouldn't have signed him anyway though. All he said was that he would have liked to sign one or two more midfielders, he only managed to get Fellaini as the the others weren't available.
When I saw the interview on mutv it didn't come across as that particular point makes it sound. When you add in the rest it's basically, we wanted two midfielders of different types for different situations, we identified fellaini as one midfielder who could give us certain qualities we wanted and were able to get him where as they couldn't get the other type.
Both of you are probably right, I guess I still feel dumbfounded how everything played out in the summer.
Certainly seems to imply that he was second choice. Even at best, it suggests that they weren't exactly overwhelmed by him as a player.
Still, pretty much what we suspected anyway, isn't it? The fact that we didn't bid the 23m straight away seemed to indicate that he wasn't a massive priority, and the fact that we massively overpaid on deadline day shows we were in a bit of a panic at that stage. Fellaini was an obtainable player who could do a job in an area of the team that would've been a mess if we didn't strengthen it at all.
This can't be good for Fellaini's confidence though. Why say it? Is it an attempt to take pressure off Fellaini?
Still, pretty much what we suspected anyway, isn't it? The fact that we didn't bid the 23m straight away seemed to indicate that he wasn't a massive priority, and the fact that we massively overpaid on deadline day shows we were in a bit of a panic at that stage. Fellaini was an obtainable player who could do a job in an area of the team that would've been a mess if we didn't strengthen it at all.
This can't be good for Fellaini's confidence though. Why say it? Is it an attempt to take pressure off Fellaini?
Stop reminding us of the summer, David.
Maybe an attempt to generate a positively arrogant response from Fellaini ("I'll show you what I can do").
I'm genuinely excited a potential midfield of Thiago/Fabregas type players with Fellaini and Carrick available too. Something to look forward to hopefully as I'm sure Moyes is sounding out potential targets all the time.
It's always the same thing, context, makes all the difference. The funny thing is he actually did say things about Fellaini not playing particularly well which if anything was going to be analysed as potentially an issue, that was it. But tbh even that was fine to say in the press imo.
i wish someone sellotapes moyes mouth shut.
I did not see much wrong with his comments. The fact Moyes wanted to sign two midfielders this summer who offered the side different qualities is very much a positive for me.
Yeah I wasn't and still not really a fan of fellaini's but him and another would have been some good business. The way it's gone so far is disappointing, but hopefully Fellaini will step up and Moyes knows we still need at least one more in the middle.
Jesus the drama llama's are out again. I swear some of you lot do the tabloids job for them.
That's exactly the way to look at it - it's definitely encouraging after all the years since signing Hargreaves where the central-midfield just wasn't on the club's agenda, now we know the current manager sees the need to improve that area. Hopefully we can show some strength in the transfer market at some point to match this objective.
They will make him play through it until January so they can get some backup. I hope anyway.
He's starting today. Look forward to how he goes with Cleverley. I think this might suit him more than Carrick
I fear he's headed to being the worst United signing in memory (at least cost wise). Maybe he'll eventually settle in and prove some of us wrong in our assessment.
He'll score his first goal for Utd today.
I reckon he will do well in today's game, opposition might suit him.
Playing with Cleverley will suit him.
My thoughts exactly.
Certainly would hope/think so. Imagine getting shown up by Cardiff's midfield.
I don't think that would necessarily mean that he is shit or something like that, Cardiff's midfield destroyed Yaya Toure earlier this year, it was probably his worst game of the season, but good game could do Fellaini a lot, that's for sure.
These next batch of games will be the most important of his career to date: our best midfielder is out for a couple of months(?) and Moyes will need to play Fellaini as part of rotation now. He needs to stamp down a mark and show the fans what he can be capable of, because so far he hasn't justified a quarter of his transfer fee in my opinion.
Feed him against the weaker teams, give him confidence with a good game and hopefully he could come good against the likes of Leverkusen and Spurs next.
Feed him against the weaker teams, give him confidence with a good game and hopefully he could come good against the likes of Leverkusen and Spurs next.
He's not shit, so let's just hope that he can prove himself worthy of the shirt. The fee might prove hard to prove, but he may well prove a decent player.
He doesn't do himself any favours at times but the referees definitely give him different treatment to everyone else - two of his three fouls so far were never fouls.
To be fair, it's his own fault that he has a reputation as a bit of a dirty player. He has to deal with it, referees aren't going to suddenly start giving him the benefit of the doubt at this stage.
His size hinders him here too, it makes it look like he's fouling people when he's not.
His size hinders him here too, it makes it look like he's fouling people when he's not.
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