Carried a club like Everton? He didn't carry them anywhere. He was an effective part in a well drilled side.
27
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 31
- Goals
- 7
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 7
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
He was one of our two CMs with the other being Rooney. Mata was further up front and could not link the play up well. When you consider this and then remember how he was basically doing nothing to help us control the game in the first half, you have to admit he was really poor.
Took a while to get going, with a very poor start to the game. But on the whole he wasn't to bad, especially considering the midfield was basically made up of him, Rooney and Mata. Not exactly the most defensivily sound group of midfielders we have. What I do like about him is his ability to get a leg in and take the ball off a player. Most of the time he comes away with it very cleanly and can give the ball off to someone due to his strength.
his passing can be awful at times but loves the way he breaks the opposition's play.
He definitely has to clean up his first touch and passing. It wasn't too bad prior to the Southampton match though so he just has to get back to that. He is a big asset defensively though. Amazing that people still want him gone from the club. He is clearly a handy player to have, even just as a squad player.
Wasn't great on the ball but I thought he put in an excellent defensive performance. Quite a number of clean, effective tackles and interceptions.
Not the best couple of games by him. I don't like him at the base of our midfield. He's not calm enough to play through. I think in a diamond he does his job well. He has suffered the most from the change to 3 at the back.
Had a pretty good 2nd half... but needs to cut out the silly bookings he gets.
On another day an early yellow like that will cost him a red.
On another day an early yellow like that will cost him a red.
Poor Fellaini - every game, he gets the most pages on a player thread where he is endlessly debated; often with the same points.
Would just like to point out his ratings as a whole on the Caf - An average rating of 6.2/10 which is amongst the highest this season. The only players ahead of him are Herrera, DDG, Di Maria and Rooney.
Would just like to point out his ratings as a whole on the Caf - An average rating of 6.2/10 which is amongst the highest this season. The only players ahead of him are Herrera, DDG, Di Maria and Rooney.
He's one of the players who should be worried about our January business
Need to sell, simply not good enough.
We tend to be very pragmatic about building from the back. It seems like passing it patiently all the time is desirable, but not an imperative; and sometimes hoofing it is the better part of valor.
I know it's regarded as football barbarism of the worst kind, but when you play it long like that, it really helps to have someone with his target-man qualities; even when he isn't occupying the position of a striker. Don't think Van Gaal is blind to this fact.
I know it's regarded as football barbarism of the worst kind, but when you play it long like that, it really helps to have someone with his target-man qualities; even when he isn't occupying the position of a striker. Don't think Van Gaal is blind to this fact.
All of our "starters" have been guilty of atrocious passing at some point this season. Again, I don't know why this is being singled out as the biggest issue! It's his positioning, touch, movement and vision which are lacking. His passing is fine, if average, for a midfielder!
No more than Rooney or Januzaj. In fact probably less, if you believe in statistics. Rooney and Januzaj sometimes dip into the 60-70% range for pass completion. Fellaini is consistently above 80%. The reason Januzaj has been permanately dropped is because he lost the ball so many times.
Just to restate what I have been saying all along: Fellaini doesn't misplace passes or lose the ball anymore than world class midfielders. Statistics don't lie. Very few midfielders are capable of consistently delivering 90% or higher pass success rate. Fellaini is in the 80s, which is where most "world class" midfielders are.
So if we want to criticize a player, let's do it based on his actual weaknesses (vision, movement, touch, clumsiness, etc.). His passing is actually highly accurate, if lacking in imagination.
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As many have said, that was most evident after half time. His second half performance was very good. Showed all the attributes that have convinced Van Gaal to keep starting him.
Really lost his shit in the first half though. Started with that terrible pass and immediate yellow card, then took ages to get back into the game. A carbon copy of Soton performance. Credit where it's due for second half display, though. Plus the discipline to survive such an early booking.
Well that should not be the case at all.
He was appalling in the first half but was much improved in the 2nd.
But he really shouldn't be our DM although LVG can be excused for yesterday given our injury worries.
But he really shouldn't be our DM although LVG can be excused for yesterday given our injury worries.
His defensive stats are fecking excellent, by the way. Be surprised if there's a DM in the league who did more to help his team win the ball back this weekend. All the more surprising, considering how long he took to get going.
Overall pass completion was mediocre but not terrible (81%). Better than Hererra's (75%) so I doubt Van Gaal will drop him any time soon, never mind sell him.
Overall pass completion was mediocre but not terrible (81%). Better than Hererra's (75%) so I doubt Van Gaal will drop him any time soon, never mind sell him.
FYI,
Fellaini is on 87% pass success so far this season. That puts him above:
Herrera
Blackett (really? wow)
Rafael
RVP
Rooney
Evans
McNair
Januzaj
Shaw
Di Maria
And almost identical to Ozil and David Silva. Iniesta is only 5% higher than Fellaini. Just so you have some perspective...
Next to Valencia, Fellaini has the 2nd highest successful tackles on our team.
Has the 2nd highest number of interceptions of our midfielders (Blind is #1)
Worryingly, he is the 4th most dispossed player on our team.
If you look at the big picture, Fellaini is a handy player. Flawed in many ways, but his contributions are there clearly to be seen.
Fellaini is on 87% pass success so far this season. That puts him above:
Herrera
Blackett (really? wow)
Rafael
RVP
Rooney
Evans
McNair
Januzaj
Shaw
Di Maria
And almost identical to Ozil and David Silva. Iniesta is only 5% higher than Fellaini. Just so you have some perspective...
Next to Valencia, Fellaini has the 2nd highest successful tackles on our team.
Has the 2nd highest number of interceptions of our midfielders (Blind is #1)
Worryingly, he is the 4th most dispossed player on our team.
If you look at the big picture, Fellaini is a handy player. Flawed in many ways, but his contributions are there clearly to be seen.
I gave him a six out of ten - his first half was absolutely dreadful, but he did well in the second half. His pass completion rate is a little misleading though - last two games, he's displayed a bad habit of playing a lax pass across his own box on his wrong foot. What's more, his control is absolutely abysmal at times - he's not necessarily losing the ball via his passes, but he tends to get it nicked off him a lot when pressed or when he's taken a bad touch. Made countless interceptions in the second half, mind you, and he did bloody well to be so disciplined on a yellow, because I thought he was a walking red.
Overall though, his style just jars with me. I'd prefer Hererra to be given a chance to show what he can do.
Overall though, his style just jars with me. I'd prefer Hererra to be given a chance to show what he can do.
Because he's always passing backwards.
But don't you think it had a lot to do with the nature of the passes Fallaini made vis-a-vis Herrera. Not too high risk ones and mostly safe sideways or back passes. True that is not bad in itself but considering he did that most of the game, 81% is rather poor. Not to mention Cleverley got slaughtered over here for precisely that kind of thing. Also, he seemed to get dispossed quite easily at times and made the same horrible side-way pass which had led to the Southampton goal. All in all, he did well in interceptions and dispossessing opponents but his passing and ball control were below average.
I tend to agree - Herrera is on a 6.5 while Fellaini is on 6.2. I reckon Herrera would have scored high in the initial games where he was shining in the diamond. The initial period would have ensured the Caf giving him good ratings as well - he was value for the money definitely in those games.
First half, yes. Different performance after half time though.
They were not playing the same role. Fellaini was playing a DM like against Soton, and 80% pass completion is not good enough in that role. Comparing their pass completion rate to try to make Fellaini look better is pointless, different players being given different roles.
Why not ?? Herrera has done well in most of his games. There is not a lot of difference in the ratings, which is about right.
True, and all very valid points. But saying that he doesn't offer enough offensively with his passing is quite different from saying that he is a terrible passer who gives the ball away a lot.
I don't think anyone ever criticized Cleverley for being a bad passer (he's on something like 92% this season, on par with the very best like Iniesta!!!). Like Cleverley, Fellaini is just lacking in imagination and movement - but both are very tidy and good at passing in the wrong direction!
True, that is a problem not just with Fellaini but with our current squad at the moment.
But Carrick doesn't have to play CB if we drop this defensive, boring 5-3-2 formation that we haven't had a single impressive performance playing.
Shocking first half overall but was excellent in the second defensively.
I lost count of the times he broke Liverpool attacks yesterday.
I lost count of the times he broke Liverpool attacks yesterday.
Nope. 75 passes attempted against Liverpool. 34 of them were forwards. 22 sideways and just 19 backwards. So 3 out of every 4 passes was not backwards.
You have to see that in the right context. When you look at how safe Fellaini's passing choices are, 81 is not good enough. Nine out of ten times he gives it to the nearest man because he's so afraid to cock up himself, yet he still manages to miss every fifth pass. Not to mention the many times his completed passes put his teammates under instant pressure because they're underhit, imprecise, or the man is marked. The stats don't show that. Nor do they show the handful of times he conceded possession because he couldn't control a simple pass.
Fellaini improved after the break yesterday, partly because Liverpool gave us more space and stopped pressing. He did well to break up some attacks. But when we had possession, he was atrocious and a major liability. Hope someone does a compilation of his first-half touches. It wasn't pretty.
I'm not denying he was shit in the first half. I'm sure there's a big difference between his pass completion % in both halves. There would have to be for such a hapless first 45 to end up with an overall 80% pass completion which is, as I said, mediocre rather than awful.
I understand what you are saying but as a professional footballer you are expected to make and get the 5-10 yard side and back passes correct. I think he had improved a lot right until the Southampton game but for some reason his performance has dipped again. My biggest gripe with him is how he watches the ball and completely forgets to track a runner (apart from the fact that he ambles when the opposition are streaming forward but I won't mention that as people will start showing how many miles/kms he covered which would still be completely irrelevant to the point). The Balotelli shot which DDG saved, Fellaini was almost next to him but still didn't see him and that Balotelli was about to take a shot.
There was a pass when he gave it to Rooney, about a 3/4 yard pass, and Rooney had a man standing less than a yard away from him (this was in our own half too) I almost threw the remote at the TV
luckily Rooney played the ball first time out wide and jumped to avoid getting clattered (the Liverpool player didn't go in too hard to either)Anyway I think Fellaini had a better 2nd half, but his passing was a liability first half (almost cost us 2 goals) and he already cost us a goal vs Southampton.
Hopefully Carrick can play midfield soon, or maybe with Blind coming back soon things will improve in terms of passing in midfield.
I didn't mean "literally" backwards, but backwards relative to the direction the play should be going. He always slows down the build up of our attack because he always tries to go for the safest pass possible, which also leads to him spending more time on the ball with a bigger chance of him being dispossessed.
I'm not blaming him for that though because he knows that passing isn't one of his strengths, so I'd still rather him passing it backwards than attempting riskier passes that could backfire. However that doesn't mean he's a good passer and those numbers are pointless really.
Defensively he's very good, and that's where his strengths lie. However, Herrera is a much better passer than Fellaini, and I didn't think there would be any debate about it, so you kind of surprised me there.
Eh? Doesn't play normally aim in the general direction of the opponents goal? What does this mean? You say he only passes backwards. Someone shows the stats say otherwise. So you try to redefine "backwards"!
My word, this thread is full of people tying themselves up in knots when presented with stats that disprove their castiron view that Fellaini is useless. If there were stats that showed Herrera was God's gift to football the numbers wouldn't be "pointless".
For the first sentence, I mean when he should pass it to a free player 20 yards forward, he still chooses the nearest man who is probably 2 yards ahead of him (so it's technically a forward pass), but he's slowing the attack and in term of how the attack should be going, he's passing it backwards.
For the second sentence, I took a hint from your tagline.
What a load of crap! Your bias is caught out when presented with the stats so you end up having to redefine the word "backwards". You better ring up the Oxford English dictionary and let them know.
Weren't you also trying to use stats last year to prove that Moyes is good manager?
This is not a math lesson, nor an English lesson. You get my point and you're yet to disprove it. And I'm not biased, I acknowledge Fellaini's strengths and where he has improved this season, passing is not one his strength, regardless what your pointless numbers which measure very little say.
I advice you to watch more games too.
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