Marouane Fellaini | 2013/14 Performances

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WARNING WARNING

Good a time as any to post this, although slightly out of the blue probably sensible to raise the issue while hes injured and being slated for a performance.

There will be an occasion, possibly more than once, this year that man united will be chasing a game very late on. It will likely be against a well organised team clinging on for a result that have proven to be hard to break down. David Moyes WILL put fellaini in a more advanced role. Id like certain people to realise now that this does not mean its becuase moyes has no idea what hes doing, it does not mean he doesnt know how to use the more talented players we have and it most certainly does not mean the "evertonisation is complete".

Im sure kagawa, rooney, rvp, nani, januzaj or some variation will be on the pitch, but as every single team in europe has done on occasion, we will move a tall player in and around the box to make himself awkward and offer a different option.

Do not lose your shit. Do not get ridiculously self righteous and indignant. Weve done it before, weve seen rio, oshea, pallister and brown dumped up front on occasion. Please bear this in mind.

(Now looking forward to bumping this with a smug yet futile "told you so" post in the coming months.
 
Dante said:
He's only played 682 minutes for United (the equivalent of about 7 and a half games) and much of that was spent struggling with a back injury. Give the bugger a chance.

He'll obviously never be Xavi or Iniesta, but Fellaini is every bit as unplayable if you utilise him properly. He could comfortably do the Jones job of dropping between the centrebacks and mopping up attacks, whilst also being versatile enough to take stints up front during games to cause problems in the opposition box. Moyes hasn't had the chance to set up the team to his or anybody else's strengths yet.
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Wait, what? You're suggesting he can be every bit as unplayable as Xavi and Iniesta?

Please tell me it's some joke that's waaaay over my head.
 
Slight exaggeration perhaps?

We should all remember there have been occasions when we have really struggled to deal with Felliaini, more than once Everton have got the better of us and Felliaini has been instrumental in it, particularly the notorious example that ultimately handed City the title. OK so you cant read too much into individual games but on his day very good teams with everything to play for can find it impossible to deal with him.
 
SER19 said:
WARNING WARNING

Good a time as any to post this, although slightly out of the blue probably sensible to raise the issue while hes injured and being slated for a performance.

There will be an occasion, possibly more than once, this year that man united will be chasing a game very late on. It will likely be against a well organised team clinging on for a result that have proven to be hard to break down. David Moyes WILL put fellaini in a more advanced role. Id like certain people to realise now that this does not mean its becuase moyes has no idea what hes doing, it does not mean he doesnt know how to use the more talented players we have and it most certainly does not mean the "evertonisation is complete".

Im sure kagawa, rooney, rvp, nani, januzaj or some variation will be on the pitch, but as every single team in europe has done on occasion, we will move a tall player in and around the box to make himself awkward and offer a different option.

Do not lose your shit. Do not get ridiculously self righteous and indignant. Weve done it before, weve seen rio, oshea, pallister and brown dumped up front on occasion. Please bear this in mind.

(Now looking forward to bumping this with a smug yet futile "told you so" post in the coming months.
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If this is in response to me saying I hope we never play him there, if you read it fully I did state apart from a final 10 minute thing where we need goals so we put him up there. What I meant, and I'm sure most mean, is that we hope we never see him as a #10, or attacking player as a long term thing or starting games like that unless everybody else is injured.

Adebesi said:
Slight exaggeration perhaps?

We should all remember there have been occasions when we have really struggled to deal with Felliaini, more than once Everton have got the better of us and Felliaini has been instrumental in it, particularly the notorious example that ultimately handed City the title. OK so you cant read too much into individual games but on his day very good teams with everything to play for can find it impossible to deal with him.
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You have to look at how he was deployed though. Sure there were days where we couldn't deal with him when he played as a target man, he's great at bringing long balls down and out-muscling defenders to win headers. In what way does that help us though? People saying he's unplayable on his day is in the exact same sense as saying Andy Carroll is unplayable, purely because he's big and strong and can win headers and bring long balls down.
 
bosnian_red said:
If this is in response to me saying I hope we never play him there, if you read it fully I did state apart from a final 10 minute thing where we need goals so we put him up there. What I meant, and I'm sure most mean, is that we hope we never see him as a #10, or attacking player as a long term thing or starting games like that unless everybody else is injured.
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Even so, I absolutely guarantee that the day that happens (and it will) the decision to do so will be met with howls of derision from the Fellaini and Moyes haters (the two generally overlap).
 
I still have faith. His decline has to be mainly psychological, and perhaps this 'injury' is the best thing that could have happened for his United career. He's been out of the limelight for a couple months, we've been mediocre in his absence (even when winning, WHU aside we've been pretty appalling by our standards) and I feel like the pressure is more or less off of him exclusively.

Plus, we don't know what impact his injury had on him before. I'm not sure how painful it was, but I could see it affecting him, given how often he's supposed to have a handful of an opponents shirt.

He's still young, has been good in the prem and will likely be starting for a very good team in the World Cup in the summer. If Moyes can get him his mojo back, he could still be a very valuable player for us.

*sips on the Kool-aid some more*
 
SER19 said:
WARNING WARNING

Good a time as any to post this, although slightly out of the blue probably sensible to raise the issue while hes injured and being slated for a performance.

There will be an occasion, possibly more than once, this year that man united will be chasing a game very late on. It will likely be against a well organised team clinging on for a result that have proven to be hard to break down. David Moyes WILL put fellaini in a more advanced role. Id like certain people to realise now that this does not mean its becuase moyes has no idea what hes doing, it does not mean he doesnt know how to use the more talented players we have and it most certainly does not mean the "evertonisation is complete".

Im sure kagawa, rooney, rvp, nani, januzaj or some variation will be on the pitch, but as every single team in europe has done on occasion, we will move a tall player in and around the box to make himself awkward and offer a different option.

Do not lose your shit. Do not get ridiculously self righteous and indignant. Weve done it before, weve seen rio, oshea, pallister and brown dumped up front on occasion. Please bear this in mind.

(Now looking forward to bumping this with a smug yet futile "told you so" post in the coming months.
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I'm totally with you on this one. He provides another option when we are struggling with our current tactics, not a complete alternative that we should stick to. Plus he can perform in the defensive role well enough, he's not a renowned playmaker which I feel people are expecting him to be.
 
Red Shorts said:
I used those videos to highlight the weaknesses people think he possesses such as he can never play a long pass or he is very slow, when in fact he is fast for a man of his size. So would you say he has less mobility than Carrick or Cleverley in those videos? If anything, from the centre of midfield he had the ability to drive the ball forward quicker than those two do, and he did this often for Everton last year.

I'm not saying he is the answer to all of our midfield problems, of course he isn't. He may never be good enough for us which is always possible, but for people to write him off when he came here with 2 different injuries after less than 6 months is straight up daft. I really do hope he recovers well from his wrist and back operations and comes back soon firing on all cylinders, because used properly he can be a helpful asset, a different option when our current tactics don't seem to be working.
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I don't think he's less mobile then Carrick, that's the main problem everyone has with Carrick though. That has always been his biggest weakness so it's hardly a big deal if somebody is more mobile then Carrick. No chance Fellaini is more mobile then Cleverley though. That's probably Cleverley's biggest strength, that he can run around a lot on his day and isn't slow so he can make up for the fact that Carrick doesn't run too much. The thing is though, it's not only to do with running around without the ball (which Fellaini really isn't that good at anyway), you also have to be able to run with the ball. Fellaini doesn't have good control or that ability to run forwards with the ball, but then again, at United only Anderson has that.

Fair enough though, he can offer something else but I don't think he'll ever be suited to a big team. He's not that good at anything when the football is at his feet, all his strengths come when the ball is in the air. That just doesn't suit United or any big team for that matter. I'd love for somebody to show me a fellaini type player who was ever a success at a big team. There isn't one. All defensive midfielders at other big clubs can either close down ground really well and are excellent defensively, or are very good at reading the game and are talented on the ball. Fellaini is just a mid table player that we paid 28million for, nothing more, nothing less.
For what it's worth, Fellaini has always been one of my least favourite players and I never wanted to sign him, us signing him doesn't make me like him, so this might be slightly biased, but I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible and give my honest opinion on him. I just don't see him having the qualities to ever be more then a squad player for us, because the things that people say we bought him for (i.e., to be the defensive, ball winning midfielder) he just isn't very good at and lacks a lot of the required attributes to be a quality midfielder. It's not big praise at all to say a new signing is better then what we have, but what does it say when a player we bought for 28 million is our 5th choice midfielder, behind Carrick, Fletcher who was out for 2 years, Jones who is a 21 year old center back and then Cleverley?
 
Irwinwastheking said:
Even so, I absolutely guarantee that the day that happens (and it will) the decision to do so will be met with howls of derision from the Fellaini and Moyes haters (the two generally overlap).
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Yeah it probably will happen, it already happened against City if I recall? I didn't have too much of a problem with it then, other then I think I remember I would rather have seen Kagawa being subbed on instead of him to give him a chance, but it wasn't a big deal. My only real concern will come if he starts being first choice at an attacking midfielder when we have Januzaj or Kagawa on the bench and we start playing long balls all the time, but since that won't happen, there's nothing to worry about there.
 
bosnian_red said:
I don't think he's less mobile then Carrick, that's the main problem everyone has with Carrick though. That has always been his biggest weakness so it's hardly a big deal if somebody is more mobile then Carrick. No chance Fellaini is more mobile then Cleverley though. That's probably Cleverley's biggest strength, that he can run around a lot on his day and isn't slow so he can make up for the fact that Carrick doesn't run too much. The thing is though, it's not only to do with running around without the ball (which Fellaini really isn't that good at anyway), you also have to be able to run with the ball. Fellaini doesn't have good control or that ability to run forwards with the ball, but then again, at United only Anderson has that.

Fair enough though, he can offer something else but I don't think he'll ever be suited to a big team. He's not that good at anything when the football is at his feet, all his strengths come when the ball is in the air. That just doesn't suit United or any big team for that matter. I'd love for somebody to show me a fellaini type player who was ever a success at a big team. There isn't one. All defensive midfielders at other big clubs can either close down ground really well and are excellent defensively, or are very good at reading the game and are talented on the ball. Fellaini is just a mid table player that we paid 28million for, nothing more, nothing less.
For what it's worth, Fellaini has always been one of my least favourite players and I never wanted to sign him, us signing him doesn't make me like him, so this might be slightly biased, but I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible and give my honest opinion on him. I just don't see him having the qualities to ever be more then a squad player for us, because the things that people say we bought him for (i.e., to be the defensive, ball winning midfielder) he just isn't very good at and lacks a lot of the required attributes to be a quality midfielder. It's not big praise at all to say a new signing is better then what we have, but what does it say when a player we bought for 28 million is our 5th choice midfielder, behind Carrick, Fletcher who was out for 2 years, Jones who is a 21 year old center back and then Cleverley?
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For the 1st point, I advise you to watch again parts of the videos I've put up. Fellaini is probably now our best option for driving forward with the ball, now that Anderson just never features and running forward with the ball isn't really Carrick, Cleverley or Fletcher's game. It's not his greatest strength, but he did it a lot more for Everton than you give him credit for.

For the 2nd point, how do you define "Fellaini type player"? Are you referring to his ability as a #10? As a defensive midfielder? Or are you referring to his aerial ability or other qualities?

That's the issue with having a biased opinion: even if players do good things in others' eyes, it may never be good to you, so his future performances may look bad through tinted glasses.

Next point, you say he's our 5th choice midfielder, but I'm betting a lot of money Moyes doesn't think the same thing. If you're judging his ability in the centre from his performances at United, you are doing so unfairly, again from the point I made about his back problems. Judge him after he has recovered from these operations and has been given a run of games to prove himself.

There is no point really debating Fellaini right now based on his United career so far, but rather when he gets a proper chance. Then we can truly say what we think of him in a fair opinion.
 
Of course he's not our 5th choice CM. Like it or not he's going to be rated as either 2nd or 3rd choice by Moyes once he's fully fit.
 
Red Shorts said:
For the 1st point, I advise you to watch again parts of the videos I've put up. Fellaini is probably now our best option for driving forward with the ball, now that Anderson just never features and running forward with the ball isn't really Carrick, Cleverley or Fletcher's game. It's not his greatest strength, but he did it a lot more for Everton than you give him credit for.

For the 2nd point, how do you define "Fellaini type player"? Are you referring to his ability as a #10? As a defensive midfielder? Or are you referring to his aerial ability or other qualities?

That's the issue with having a biased opinion: even if players do good things in others' eyes, it may never be good to you, so his future performances may look bad through tinted glasses.

Next point, you say he's our 5th choice midfielder, but I'm betting a lot of money Moyes doesn't think the same thing. If you're judging his ability in the centre from his performances at United, you are doing so unfairly, again from the point I made about his back problems. Judge him after he has recovered from these operations and has been given a run of games to prove himself.

There is no point really debating Fellaini right now based on his United career so far, but rather when he gets a proper chance. Then we can truly say what we think of him in a fair opinion.
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Yeah he probably is our best midfielder running with the ball. That's a depressing thought though, because I'd consider that one of his weaknesses. In the Arsenal vid, look at the bit at 1:13. Sure he runs with it, but you just look at little things like how far in front of him he pushes the ball with every touch, he just doesn't look that comfortable doing it. He delivers a poor pass at the end of that too. That's just how I picture him running with the ball, more often then not he'll do things like that.

I'm not really sure how to define a Fellaini type player when he's being used as a defensive midfielder really. He's not a work horse like Khedira or something, he's nowhere close to a player like Javi martinez when it comes to winning the ball back and he's not one to read the play and intercept balls and cover space like Busquets. All top teams have pretty different players when it comes to the defensive midfield position, but they all are either very energetic and are work horses, and very mobile players like Khedira, Matic for Chelsea now, Toure for City when he's used as a defensive mid, Bender for Dortmund, etc., or are talented on the ball and good at reading the play like Carrick used to be for us, what Flamini is for Arsenal, Lucas for Liverpool, Busquets for Barca, and on and on.

Agree though, I doubt I'll ever rate Fellaini as United level because his skillset just doesn't suit us IMO.


Irwinwastheking said:
Of course he's not our 5th choice CM. Like it or not he's going to be rated as either 2nd or 3rd choice by Moyes once he's fully fit.
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As for him being 5th choice. When he was fit, he was behind Cleverley, Jones, Giggs and Carrick on the pecking order pretty much. He would obviously be the defensive one of the 2, so he's only really competing with Carrick, Jones and now Fletcher, so its not really fair to say he's 5th choice I guess. Considering the way Fletcher has come back, he's probably 4th choice for being the defensive midfielder, and he definitely won't be partnering Carrick or Fletcher because of their lack of mobility and him not being creative or that great on the ball to be the ball player playing next to the ball winner.
 
Liam147 said:
Purely out of interest, what kind of fee do you think we could attract for him?
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Its all academic seeing as the chances of us selling him in the next 12 months are virtually zero, and the infinitesimal chance of him being sold would require Moyes to lose his job between now and the summer and the new boss to come in and fairly ruthlessly sell him instantly, neither of which are going to happen anyway.

But if you put the question slightly differently: what would have been a fair price for us to have paid for Felliaini? I would say he is worth something in the region of 16-18m. On the basis he is PL proven and has been the star (or one of two) at a consistently top 6 level team.
 
bosnian_red said:
As for him being 5th choice. When he was fit, he was behind Cleverley, Jones, Giggs and Carrick on the pecking order pretty much. He would obviously be the defensive one of the 2, so he's only really competing with Carrick, Jones and now Fletcher, so its not really fair to say he's 5th choice I guess. Considering the way Fletcher has come back, he's probably 4th choice for being the defensive midfielder, and he definitely won't be partnering Carrick or Fletcher because of their lack of mobility and him not being creative or that great on the ball to be the ball player playing next to the ball winner.
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He hasn't been fit yet so not sure how you come to that conclusion. He's been partially injured and out of form since he came to United and that's why others have played at times over him, not because they are whatever choice and he's 5th.

Only Carrick and arguably Fletcher if he keeps going how he is are above him in any midfield pecking order at United right now.
 
BAMSOLA said:
Most who have been watching him for for the last couple of seasons will know that he was Everton's most important player under Moyes, that he was being played in a different role to the one he has to now adapt to here and that compared to his time at Everton his performances for us so far have been surprisingly muted and restrained which is normally a sign of a player adjusting to a new position and new surroundings.

But he is perfectly capable of playing that position as it was his natural position up until the last few seasons at Everton(box to box/ball winning CM) and it was always gonna take a while for both him to adjust and with a new manager at the club for that manager to figure out the best way to utilize him amongst a set of players who the manager isn't even overly familiar.

Some need to have far more patience.
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They certainly do, there are some shocking posts in this thread.
 
Irwinwastheking said:
He hasn't been fit yet so not sure how you come to that conclusion. He's been partially injured and out of form since he came to United and that's why others have played at times over him, not because they are whatever choice and he's 5th.

Only Carrick and arguably Fletcher if he keeps going how he is are above him in any midfield pecking order at United right now.
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Wasn't really aware that he was injured the whole time, obviously he's much better then what he showed for United so far but I'm still not sure if that's any better then what Fletcher can offer or how Jones played as a defensive mid this season. I'll give him a chance then to prove me wrong seeing as we're stuck with him one way or another, but it just seems like it was a big waste of money to me.
 
bosnian_red said:
If this is in response to me saying I hope we never play him there, if you read it fully I did state apart from a final 10 minute thing where we need goals so we put him up there. What I meant, and I'm sure most mean, is that we hope we never see him as a #10, or attacking player as a long term thing or starting games like that unless everybody else is injured.



You have to look at how he was deployed though. Sure there were days where we couldn't deal with him when he played as a target man, he's great at bringing long balls down and out-muscling defenders to win headers. In what way does that help us though? People saying he's unplayable on his day is in the exact same sense as saying Andy Carroll is unplayable, purely because he's big and strong and can win headers and bring long balls down.
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i had never even seen your post, was aimed at nobody in particular. I can just see there being a huge meltdown when it happens and we fail to score. :angel:
 
RedRonaldo said:
Problem is can he form a good partnership with Carrick? I'd prefer a not fully fitted Fletcher to partner Carrick any time, and trust Jones more in CDM role when Carrick is not available.
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It's not always about Carrick though. He has a couple of seasons left in him. Fellaini is better in the "Carrick role" than a box-to-box role. He looked lost earlier this season - his pressing, for example, was inconsistent. IMO, Fellaini will prove to be a good signing for us. It isn't his fault that we overpaid for him and the fact that he was our only signing means that he will receive a lot of criticism, partially because of the lack of patience. There is no denying, of course, that Herrera would have been welcomed more to the club, but I'm convinced that Fellaini can perform consistently well for us. I rewatched the his performance against Everton and it's exactly the type of performance we'll see from him when he's back. He can be a little bit too quick to get to his man, but there are more positives for me than negatives.
 
He's obviously a lot better than he's shown so far but I can't see how he can get regular game time unless we change our formation. Carrick and him together is too immobile
 
akash02 said:
He's obviously a lot better than he's shown so far but I can't see how he can get regular game time unless we change our formation. Carrick and him together is too immobile
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A system similar to what we had on Saturday in the second half would work perfectly. Either Rooney or Kagawa need to be play more as an attacking midfielder rather than a second striker but I've said that for ages.
 
BAMSOLA said:
Most who have been watching him for for the last couple of seasons will know that he was Everton's most important player under Moyes, that he was being played in a different role to the one he has to now adapt to here and that compared to his time at Everton his performances for us so far have been surprisingly muted and restrained which is normally a sign of a player adjusting to a new position and new surroundings.

But he is perfectly capable of playing that position as it was his natural position up until the last few seasons at Everton(box to box/ball winning CM) and it was always gonna take a while for both him to adjust and with a new manager at the club for that manager to figure out the best way to utilize him amongst a set of players who the manager isn't even overly familiar.

Some need to have far more patience.
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The point is he was never very impressive when he played as a CM for Everton, he only became impressive when used as a target man, we don't really need or want that here, but like I said that may be how he is used. Patience aren't gonna change the fact that he will never be a great CM or even close to great, which is what we desperately need, and if we'd just wanted a PL proven squad CM then Cabaye was a much better option IMO.
 
Adebesi said:
Its all academic seeing as the chances of us selling him in the next 12 months are virtually zero, and the infinitesimal chance of him being sold would require Moyes to lose his job between now and the summer and the new boss to come in and fairly ruthlessly sell him instantly, neither of which are going to happen anyway.

But if you put the question slightly differently: what would have been a fair price for us to have paid for Felliaini? I would say he is worth something in the region of 16-18m. On the basis he is PL proven and has been the star (or one of two) at a consistently top 6 level team.
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pretty much what I was going to say as well...

Price wise he wasn't worth more than 20 million imo.
 
No one could deny that we overpaid, especially since we could have got him for 23 million before which was still a little too much. But we've bought him, we should move on from the price tag and hopes he can perform well in our shirt rather than slate him to high heavens already.
 
Devil may care said:
The point is he was never very impressive when he played as a CM for Everton, he only became impressive when used as a target man, we don't really need or want that here, but like I said that may be how he is used. Patience aren't gonna change the fact that he will never be a great CM or even close to great, which is what we desperately need, and if we'd just wanted a PL proven squad CM then Cabaye was a much better option IMO.
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He was a very effective force in CM for Everton on quite a few occasions in his first few seasons and although he often played an AM target man role most of the time in his last couple of seasons there, he still needed to be able to drop back into CM on occasions and did so to good effect. He is perfectly capable of being a very good box to box/ball winning CM, I think Moyes knows that and would never have bought him to play exactly the same role he did during his last few seasons at Everton.

Phil Neville himself has talked about the training he's going through behind the scenes and the fact that they are looking to up his fitness to make him more of a box to box type, people just need to have more patience before writing off a very good player.
 
BAMSOLA said:
Phil Neville himself has talked about the training he's going through behind the scenes and the fact that they are looking to up his fitness to make him more of a box to box type, people just need to have more patience before writing off a very good player.
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That's something you don't see occurring in the caf sadly.
 
BAMSOLA said:
He was a very effective force in CM for Everton on quite a few occasions in his first few seasons and although he often played an AM target man role most of the time in his last couple of seasons there, he still needed to be able to drop back into CM on occasions and did so to good effect. He is perfectly capable of being a very good box to box/ball winning CM, I think Moyes knows that and would never have bought him to play exactly the same role he did during his last few seasons at Everton.

Phil Neville himself has talked about the training he's going through behind the scenes and the fact that they are looking to up his fitness to make him more of a box to box type, people just need to have more patience before writing off a very good player.
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Rather than go around in circles the crux of this is that I don't think he's a very good player, he's performing exactly how I expected him to, it's not patience it's simply that I've always thought he was a very average player.
 
Devil may care said:
Rather than go around in circles the crux of this is that I don't think he's a very good player, he's performing exactly how I expected him to, it's not patience it's simply that I've always thought he was a very average player.
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We'll have to agree to disagree, I've always though he was a very good player(not an exceptional one) and I think time will prove me right as far as being a very good player for united goes.
 
Irwinwastheking said:
We over paid, but not Andy Carroll levels of over paying.
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At least Andy Carroll had some sell on potential, what with being English.

We're gonna struggle to get anything decent for Fellaini when we eventually try and get rid of him (the sooner the better). I'd be happy if we never saw him in a United shirt again.
 
Sam said:
At least Andy Carroll had some sell on potential, what with being English.

We're gonna struggle to get anything decent for Fellaini when we eventually try and get rid of him (the sooner the better). I'd be happy if we never saw him in a United shirt again.
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You're such a wonderful supporter. A beacon to us all.
 
Irwinwastheking said:
You're such a wonderful supporter. A beacon to us all.
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Should I think that Fellaini is amazing, simply cos United have signed him? Are we supposed to now rate every single United player because they are United players? Or are we allowed opinions?
 
probably want to wait before he's played more than 10 games or so, all of which with a niggly injury, at a time of the season we were at our sh!Ttest.

just saying!!
 
A) We're clearly not going to be selling Fellaini anytime soon.

B) He's not an outstanding midfielder but if he reaches the same level he did while playing in CM for Everton he'll definitely be a better option than Cleverley.

C) If we ever do sell him we'd obviously take a massive loss, probably be lucky to get half of what we paid for him. That's no surprise though as we massively overpaid and a player like Fellaini will only leave when we want him gone anyway so you'd hardly expect us to get a great fee for him. 12-14m, maybe.
 
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