Fellaini: United in little crisis

[ManUchosenbosslvg]

Schneiderlin & Herrera started against Feyenoord and did what exactly?

When they're given chances do they always take them? Why should they be given preferential treatment?

Herrera has been here almost as long as Fellaini and I can't remember his last great game.
I don't even think Schneiderlin has had a great game for us since joining us.

Everyone in the match thread was raving about their performance in the 1st half. Still think Schweinsteiger would do a job with Pogba and Herrera doing the leg work for him. José prob not a big enough man to back down after trying to make an example out of him backfired.

 

[Snow]

He is part of the problem on the field though.

He's the token of our problem. Personally he's done well this past two season with what he's been asked. The problem is what he is being asked to do. We should have someone else that is asked to do what's being asked to do. As such it's unfair on him to call him the problem as long as he's performing.

 

[devilish]

Any top team who has to play Fellaini as a first teamer is in crisis especially if he's one of the better players we've got

 

[villain]

Everyone in the match thread was raving about their performance in the 1st half. Still think Schweinsteiger would do a job with Pogba and Herrera doing the leg work for him. José prob not a big enough man to back down after trying to make an example out of him backfired.

I do think Schweinsteiger would be a better option to have in a midfield 3 with Pogba & Fellaini, but like you said I doubt Mourinho would change his decision now.

Schneiderlin & Herrera started off well but when it really mattered as we were losing they failed to step up.
Fellaini might be limited but he tries hard and doesn't shy away even when we're not winning. I just don't see that as often with Schneiderlin. Herrera tries harder but I can't say he's shown more than Fellaini currently.

 

[shamans]

feck off.

Sick of this lot throwing around the same lines every week and then not showing up. And now they're shocked at Mourinho bollocking Shaw.

Pack of shit the beds. Getting away with murder for the last 3 years. Hope Mourinho picks them apart and brings players who aren't going to cry if a manager asks them to close down.

As for Fellaini.... Yeah, 3 years of Rooney, Smalling, Carrick and Mata saying the same shite every week... feck off and actually do something about it

When approached by journalists what should they say? "feck off we are pretty shit"

 

[.Rossi]

When approached by journalists what should they say? "feck off we are pretty shit"

Is it just ex Everton lads you have a thing for?!

I'm not sitting here and going to defend 3 years of utter shit that these players have served up. The time to stop talking and actually do something about it is now!

 

[klayton88]

I can't be doing with another season of "we go again on Saturday" from the likes of Herrera and DDG on twitter. We've turned in to rawk.

 

[AndyJ1985]

When approached by journalists what should they say? "feck off we are pretty shit"

No, they should just say feck off.

 

[Kag]

Our players have to come out with this rhetoric. Honestly, if they could go their entire career's (not you, Wayne) without having to give another interview then the vast majority of footballer's would give them a miss.

On the subject of Fellaini, he's had a solid start to the season for us. Lots of people are trying to inflate this, mind you, turning his efforts into something they're not.

 

[Invictus]

Gah, seems like this has to be repeated over and over again whenever Fellaini is discussed, but it isn't necessarily about being 'better' or 'worse' as standalone terms in a diametrically opposed sense; and the discussion inevitably hits a cul-de-sac when one uses reductive black and white terms like that to quantify things, without looking at the team as a whole and questioning why the players who're supposed to be among our best aren't performing at an optimal level. It's not about Fellaini being our apparent best player, or in form - that's not how you 'build' a team as a new manager, and that's so not how you build an identity for subsequent sides. Someone like Fergie could pull that off because we already had an identity, and he could easily mix and match things. But not someone who's just walked in that door.

You build a team to highlight the best features of your best players (in terms of talent and technique), not stand pat because one of the worst players in your team (again - in terms of talent and technique) is playing at a decent level. If it was only about being good in the moment and in current form in a team that is performing rather poorly, then you can't possibly build a stable lineup, because form in transient and you're not actively striving towards a pattern that brings out the best in your best players. To build a holistically sound midfield unit, you have to have complementary features - it's a basic concept. It might be crap at first, and you might have to rip things apart before rebuilding them instead of seeking the easy out; but if it's fundamentally and structurally spot on (or close to it), you can 'play people into form' with more game time - it's a matter of conviction. Then, you have the proper structure and players in form.

eg. 1: There's a guy named Andrea Pirlo who wasn't much cop at Internazionale. We've bought him, but we have no fecking idea what to do with him. He isn't a top quality CM in the all-round traditional sense, or an AM that can take over games with pace and goalscoring ability. But we think he can be a good deep playmaker - someone who can control the game for us. He has excellent deep passing ability and positional/tactical awareness, but he's soft and slow and weak (which is why his previous team team could't find ideal use for him). We think we have to persist with him because of how good we think he can be, but how can we accentuate his potentially world class ability on the ball in terms of dictating the game? We put a mobile and complete box-to-box alongside him in Seedorf, and we put a selfless harrier on the other side in Gattuso. Now, we're minimizing his weaknesses - the midfield is no longer soft and slow and weak as a collective; and he can dictate things while sitting back. And since the other two don't want to control the game, Pirlo's left to do what he's actually good at.

eg. 2: There's a guy named Paul Pogba who was pretty groovy in Juventus. Not so much for France though, because he was being asked to play in a central, more tactically disciplined role. We've gone and paid the world record fee for him, but we insist on using him like France (because that worked out so well, didn't it?). We know that he isn't a top quality dual CM in the traditional sense, or someone who can dictate the game. But we do know that he's world class as a 'spare' midfielder who can transition into the final third. He has excellent physique and pace and technical skill on the move towards goal; but he's tactically underdeveloped as a CM, a bit naive in terms of tracking back, sometimes he shows a lack of effort and dawdles on the ball - which the previous team compensated for by putting him next to a tactically astute albeit not very mobile player who will reduce Pogba's tendency to sit on the ball by controlling how much of the ball he sees (Pirlo/Marchisio) apart from a mobile midfielder who tracks well and is good at pressing teams (Vidal/Khedira). But nah, what do we do? We put him next to a past it #10/SS/CM/Libero/quarterback; and Fellaini - who's tactically and technically stunted. Then we wonder why our world record signing is playing poorly...

It's so not about Fellaini being in form/our of form or good/bad. It's about building things in a way that accentuates the strengths of your best players in terms of talent and actual, proven pedigree (Zlatan/Pogba/Mkhitaryan among others). You put Fellaini in midfield, and because he's not positionally astute and can't pass at anywhere above a rudimentary level, Pogba's left to do the passing and watching his movement - which results in crap because he's not very good at that:

We know that he isn't a top quality dual CM in the traditional sense, or someone who can dictate the game. But we do know that he's world class as a midfield third who can transition into the final third. He has excellent physique and pace and technical skill on the move; but he's tactically underdeveloped as a CM, a bit naive in terms of tracking back, sometimes he shows a lack of effort and dawdles on the ball

So you're telling you shiny new toy to suddenly develop new skillsets at a great level to compensate for Fellaini (the best player in the team). All the while, you're overlooking someone like Carrick who's:

the previous team compensated for by putting him next to a tactically astute albeit not very mobile player who will reduce Pogba's tendency to sit on the ball by controlling how much of the ball he sees (Pirlo/Marchisio)

And the other cog is right in front of your eyes too (Ander):

apart from a mobile midfielder who tracks well and is good at pressing teams

The solution is pretty simple, but you don't wanna do it because Rooney plays almost every game, and Fellaini 'is our best player' and others aren't stepping up - instead of reasoning why they aren't stepping up - they aren't stepping up because football isn't all about blood and guts, but about systemic fits and specific players traits - that you try to harmonize in an defined setup. No wonder we look positionally and structurally inept, and lack a real identity. Put your best players in positions of strength and surround them with the obvious supporting cast instead of half-arsing things and suddenly expecting them to step up and change their games to compensate for players that shouldn't even be a point of emphasis. The fact that Fellaini is playing well while your record signing isn't playing up to par for obvious tactical/individual player characteristic reasons should send alarm bells ringing. Or, you could be satisfied with Fellaini as the DM; and hope that Pogba suddenly becomes much better at controlling the game, tactically responsible and good at tracking back to cover tactical flaws. Dunno, maybe I'm a raving loon who's oblivious to the virtues of Fellaini as a starter in this team.

 

[shamans]

Is it just ex Everton lads you have a thing for?!

I'm not sitting here and going to defend 3 years of utter shit that these players have served up. The time to stop talking and actually do something about it is now!

This has nothing to do with Fellaini. I just get annoyed when people get annoyed at what managers and players say in press conferences. They've been told to just say the most neutral non controversial things yet people get all riled up.

If you were approached by a journalist what would you say?

 

[.Rossi]

This has nothing to do with Fellaini. I just get annoyed when people get annoyed at what managers and players say in press conferences. They've been told to just say the most neutral non controversial things yet people get all riled up.

If you were approached by a journalist what would you say?

"No comment"

Simple as that!

 

[afrocentricity]

Agenda posters out in force, any excuse... Never mind the fact that Fellaini isn't the problem.

 

[prath92]

Gah, seems like this has to be repeated over and over again whenever Fellaini is discussed, but it isn't necessarily about being 'better' or 'worse' as standalone terms in a diametrically opposed sense; and the discussion inevitably hits a cul-de-sac when one uses reductive black and white terms like that to quantify things, without looking at the team as a whole and questioning why the players who're supposed to be among our best aren't performing at an optimal level. It's not about Fellaini being our apparent best player, or in form - that's not how you 'build' a team as a new manager, and that's so not how you build an identity for subsequent sides. Someone like Fergie could pull that off because we already had an identity, and he could easily mix and match things. But not someone who's just walked in that door.

You build a team to highlight the best features of your best players (in terms of talent and technique), not stand pat because one of the worst players in your team (again - in terms of talent and technique) is playing at a decent level. If it was only about being good in the moment and in current form in a team that is performing rather poorly, then you can't possibly build a stable lineup, because form in transient and you're not actively striving towards a pattern that brings out the best in your best players. To build a holistically sound midfield unit, you have to have complementary features - it's a basic concept. It might be crap at first, and you might have to rip things apart before rebuilding them instead of seeking the easy out; but if it's fundamentally and structurally spot on (or close to it), you can 'play people into form' with more game time - it's a matter of conviction. Then, you have the proper structure and players in form.

eg. 1: There's a guy named Andrea Pirlo who wasn't much cop at Internazionale. We've bought him, but we have no fecking idea what to do with him. He isn't a top quality CM in the all-round traditional sense, or an AM that can take over games with pace and goalscoring ability. But we think he can be a good deep playmaker - someone who can control the game for us. He has excellent deep passing ability and positional/tactical awareness, but he's soft and slow and weak (which is why his previous team team could't find ideal use for him). We think we have to persist with him because of how good we think he can be, but how can we accentuate his potentially world class ability on the ball in terms of dictating the game? We put a mobile and complete box-to-box alongside him in Seedorf, and we put a selfless harrier on the other side in Gattuso. Now, we're minimizing his weaknesses - the midfield is no longer soft and slow and weak as a collective; and he can dictate things while sitting back. And since the other two don't want to control the game, Pirlo's left to do what he's actually good at.

eg. 2: There's a guy named Paul Pogba who was pretty groovy in Juventus. Not so much for France though, because he was being asked to play in a central, more tactically disciplined role. We've gone and paid the world record fee for him, but we insist on using him like France (because that worked out so well, didn't it?). We know that he isn't a top quality dual CM in the traditional sense, or someone who can dictate the game. But we do know that he's world class as a 'spare' midfielder who can transition into the final third. He has excellent physique and pace and technical skill on the move towards goal; but he's tactically underdeveloped as a CM, a bit naive in terms of tracking back, sometimes he shows a lack of effort and dawdles on the ball - which the previous team compensated for by putting him next to a tactically astute albeit not very mobile player who will reduce Pogba's tendency to sit on the ball by controlling how much of the ball he sees (Pirlo/Marchisio) apart from a mobile midfielder who tracks well and is good at pressing teams (Vidal/Khedira). But nah, what do we do? We put him next to a past it #10/SS/CM/Libero/quarterback; and Fellaini - who's tactically and technically stunted. Then we wonder why our world record signing is playing poorly...

It's so not about Fellaini being in form/our of form or good/bad. It's about building things in a way that accentuates the strengths of your best players in terms of talent and actual, proven pedigree (Zlatan/Pogba/Mkhitaryan among others). You put Fellaini in midfield, and because he's not positionally astute and can't pass at anywhere above a rudimentary level, Pogba's left to do the passing and watching his movement - which results in crap because he's not very good at that:

So you're telling you shiny new toy to suddenly develop new skillsets at a great level to compensate for Fellaini (the best player in the team). All the while, you're overlooking someone like Carrick who's:

And the other cog is right in front of your eyes too (Ander):

The solution is pretty simple, but you don't wanna do it because Rooney plays almost every game, and Fellaini 'is our best player' and others aren't stepping up - instead of reasoning why they aren't stepping up - they aren't stepping up because football isn't all about blood and guts, but about systemic fits and specific players traits - that you try to harmonize in an defined setup. No wonder we look positionally and structurally inept, and lack a real identity. Put your best players in positions of strength and surround them with the obvious supporting cast instead of half-arsing things and suddenly expecting them to step up and change their games to compensate for players that shouldn't even be a point of emphasis. The fact that Fellaini is playing well while your record signing isn't playing up to par for obvious tactical/individual player characteristic reasons should send alarm bells ringing. Or, you could be satisfied with Fellaini as the DM; and hope that Pogba suddenly becomes much better at controlling the game, tactically responsible and good at tracking back to cover tactical flaws. Dunno, maybe I'm a raving loon who's oblivious to the virtues of Fellaini as a starter in this team.

The difference that you are ignoring here is that juve also had chiellini and barzagli or Bonucci (sometimes all 3 at the back). They are top defenders that we don't have all aerially good.

Your midfield of Herrera Pogba Carrick on paper is supposed to work the same way in front of Smalling and Bailly who don't have the composure that their defenders had or blind Bailly who don't have the aerial prowess that juve had

This is not even considering that Herrera in reality is defensively average and leaves gaps in the midfield much worse than Fellaini. Carrick effectively can't be relied upon at 35 to hold on his own. He doesn't have the pace nor aerial ability. His biggest weapon was his interception and that's assuming he is still excellent at it (because we haven't seen him play this season it would be pointless expecting him to still be the Carrick of 2 years back - which he wasn't last year).

So your balanced midfield may actually not suit the team at all.

Right now we seem to good defending set pieces thanks to fellaini who even if he may be 'tactically limited' like you say, he still is good in defensive headers

And there are many top teams who play technically limited players in midfield. Dier and wanyama at Spurs, drinkwater at Leicester, coquelin at Arsenal, Casemiro at Madrid etc, all we could argue are starting for teams around our level (whether we agree lcfc and Spurs are top teams or not). They aren't any better than Fellaini at DM role. They work because they have players like Modric and cazorla with them to help them. If a new record signing xhaka doesn't work well with coquelin do you drop coquelin or do you drop xhaka?

 

[Invictus]

The difference that you are ignoring here is that juve also had chiellini and barzagli or Bonucci (sometimes all 3 at the back). They are top defenders that we don't have all aerially good.

Your midfield of Herrera Pogba Carrick on paper is supposed to work the same way in front of Smalling and Bailly who don't have the composure that their defenders had or blind Bailly who don't have the aerial prowess that juve had

This is not even considering that Herrera in reality is defensively average and leaves gaps in the midfield much worse than Fellaini. Carrick effectively can't be relied upon at 35 to hold on his own. He doesn't have the pace nor aerial ability. His biggest weapon was his interception and that's assuming he is still excellent at it (because we haven't seen him play this season it would be pointless expecting him to still be the Carrick of 2 years back - which he wasn't last year).

So your balanced midfield may actually not suit the team at all.

Right now we seem to good defending set pieces thanks to fellaini who even if he may be 'tactically limited' like you say, he still is good in defensive headers

And there are many top teams who play technically limited players in midfield. Dier and wanyama at Spurs, drinkwater at Leicester, coquelin at Arsenal, mikel at Chelsea, Casemiro at Madrid etc. They aren't any better than Fellaini at DM role.

Don't agree with a lot of things in that post, to be honest, mate. But that's ok, let's discuss via PM because the tiresome 'agenda poster/hater' brigade is already starting to rear its head. Yeah, instead of rationally discussing the problems United is facing, and acknowledging that certain players are fundamentally ill suited to a more cohesive approach in that particular position, let's sweep things under the rug and call narratives that don't suit your viewpoint an 'agenda':

Agenda posters out in force, any excuse... Never mind the fact that Fellaini isn't the problem.

 

[NYAS]

Don't agree with a lot of things in that post, to be honest, mate. But that's ok, let's discuss via PM because the tiresome 'agenda poster/hater' brigade is already starting to rear its head. Yeah, instead of rationally discussing the problems United is facing, and acknowledging that certain players are fundamentally ill suited to a more cohesive approach in that particular position, let's sweep things under the rug and call narratives that don't suit your viewpoint an 'agenda':

Your post was spot on and what I've been repeating for awhile. It's so disappointing that Mourinho seems to have not considered that, it's just mind-boggling why we're asking Fellaini to hold when we have Michael Carrick and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

The reality is that they haven't been anywhere as bad as people on here make them out to have been, but people like revisionism when it suits them so that they don't have to deal with the mental disturbance a criticism of their new manager causes. We've seen a lot of this over the past few years: new manager comes in, fan convinces themselves he's perfect, manager makes bizarre decisions that reflect negatively on the team, fan defends him because they don't want to face the fact that their new perfect manager isn't actually perfect, fast forward a year or two, manager gets sacked, dressing-room stories get leaked about how he was always terrible, same fan brings up contentious previous point of criticism as a reason the manager "was never going to get it right with decisions like that".

Jose Mourinho is asking Fellaini to hold, when we have Carrick and Schweinsteiger in the squad. Don't give me crap about how their form has sucked or how they're "past it" when they're the only ones in the whole squad who can hold. Mourinho playing Fellaini as a holding midfielder alongside Paul fecking Pogba of all people in a 2-man midfield with Wayne Rooney wandering about ahead of them cannot be described as a good, let alone well thought-out situation for your midfield, in any circumstance.

Fellaini is doing what his abilities allow him to do. He's just not any better than that and it's not on him that Mourinho is asking him to do something he can't. Pogba might work in a two-man midfield with a box-to-box role but it would have to be alongside a holding playmaker and not a destroyer.

Mourinho needs to sort this mess out fast.

 

[RedFish]

He's been our best player so far.

We didn's sign megastars like Pogba and Zlatan or Mkhi for them to be outshone by Fellaini......
If he;s been our best player we're clearly struggling, which of course, we are.

 

[RedElf]

He's doing his best with the skill set he is blessed with, but he ain't good enough. Jose should have got a better DM during the summer.

 

[Ish]

@Invictus

Good posts.

 

[Adebesi]

Agreed, very interesting analysis @Invictus, thanks.

 

[PitchFork]

@Invictus and @prath92 I do hope you continue that discussion in public. There are obviously a few people taking great interest in what you have to say.