Watch him dominate Gerrard on Sunday.
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I would love you to be right but I just cant see it.
Now this poster is claiming to have inside information, either that or he believes everything written in the papers to be true and if so then may god help him.
Fellaini spoke of leaving because he felt he was made a scapegoat last season but in the end decided to stay, Louis van Gaal made clear no player would be shipped off, no player would be given the axe, the player would leave only of his own will.
It's a bit rich of you of to come into the Mcnair thread and slate the people for 'abusing' Blackett and do the same with Fellaini
Hypocrite.Blind and Carrick are better at DM, Herrera and Di Maria are better in CM and we'll sign Strootman or someone else in January/The Summer and Fellaini will move on for a decent price. He'd do well enough at lots of teams, but he's not good enough for us.
For all his positive qualities, he doesn't recognize danger defensively and he's certainly below average as a passer at CM for a CL side. You basically can't survive at this level with both those faults.
He's useful at times and good enough to be an okay depth CM for us, but I hate seeing him play over Herrera, who moves, passes and defends better.
In some ways he's unlucky not to have been here in the immediate post-Scholes days, but we have 2 good CM's in Herrera and Di Maria now, and should really be looking to add another to compete/rotate/play together.
If he can keep being a solid contributor and we get a CL spot and sell him for 15 million or, this whole thing will be just a mistake and not a feck-tastrophe.
For all his positive qualities, he doesn't recognize danger defensively and he's certainly below average as a passer at CM for a CL side. You basically can't survive at this level with both those faults.
He's useful at times and good enough to be an okay depth CM for us, but I hate seeing him play over Herrera, who moves, passes and defends better.
In some ways he's unlucky not to have been here in the immediate post-Scholes days, but we have 2 good CM's in Herrera and Di Maria now, and should really be looking to add another to compete/rotate/play together.
If he can keep being a solid contributor and we get a CL spot and sell him for 15 million or, this whole thing will be just a mistake and not a feck-tastrophe.
It's a bit rich of you of to come into the Mcnair thread and slate the people for 'abusing' Blackett and do the same with Fellaini
How can you compare them? Fellaini is a 'seasoned' PL player. I was comparing how people are assessing two young inexperienced players.
Every rumor we had concerning player outs came to fruition. Nani, Hernandez, Van Gaal's talks with Welbeck about his exit, etc. Benitez actually mentioned Fellaini, stating that his future was in United's hands and that was right after strong rumors about his 'imminent' move to them. Why did he have to even answer to paper talk?
http://www1.skysports.com/football/...-fellainis-future-in-manchester-uniteds-hands
Fellaini is a Manchester United player. Do you give a shit about say Suso in Liverpool because he's one of the 'young and inexperienced player'? I agree with your stance on Blackett, he's a young player but more importantly, he's one of our players and he shouldn't be harshly criticized, and so is Fellaini. Your criticism of Fellaini is baffling because he's been playing swimmingly well for us ever since he's been back from injury. Everybody has a game when they are not playing well including RvP, Rooney, Mcnair and Blackett. While you seem to 'pleasantly surprised' at the support that Mcnair got even though he was subbed out under 40 minutes, you are happy to slate Fellaini. Sorry, that's a shit argument.
The fact that there are people whose average rating for Fellaini this season is around 4 or less, says it all. There are some folk who are simply blinded by hate, or cannot bare the thought of being proven wrong and a player coming good.
Whilst plenty of the Caf may still advocate Fellaini being sold, fortunately the man in charge seems to have come in with an unbiased view and is taking each player on merit. Fellaini has been given chances and for the most part he has taken them and been one of our best players over the last couple of months - during which we have won 7, drawn 2 and lost 1.
Whilst plenty of the Caf may still advocate Fellaini being sold, fortunately the man in charge seems to have come in with an unbiased view and is taking each player on merit. Fellaini has been given chances and for the most part he has taken them and been one of our best players over the last couple of months - during which we have won 7, drawn 2 and lost 1.
What did I say in the previous post, can you recall? Probably not because you don't read them properly, I said Fellaini himself admitted he was thinking about leaving because he felt he was made a scapegoat by fans for last seasons failure but in the end he opted to stay.
Also I have to laugh at the link you posted, please enjoy this
Benitez answered a question when asked, he said I must work with the players I have and Fellaini is not our player so his future is Man Utd's concern.
Where have we heard this? Louis van Gaal recently when asked about January transfers when he also said he must work with the players he has and to talk of other players is disrespectful, he was asked a question and he answered. Louis always says "I did not say that but you asked and so I answered", Benitez was asked a question and replied with a logical answer in that Fellaini is not his player, only in your world would this mean "Fellaini will be our player soon".
Now instead of you spreading lies in this thread I would like to get Louis van Gaal's opinion on the situation.
The middle of august, Louis van Gaal says from 1:55 mark that he needs to assess Fellaini and this will take two weeks.
The article you post is from the start of August yet Louis van Gaal said he needs two weeks to see Fellaini before he can make a decision, so either you are wrong yet again or Louis van Gaal is telling us all lies and never wanted to observe Fellaini train, which is it?
And what was the point of this post? You could have just read my previous post properly..
Is there anyone who's giving him that sort of rating, though? Genuine question, since I imagine most would recognise he's at least doing fairly decent now, despite his poor performance on Monday.
Again, even saying he's been one of our best players recently isn't that much of a compliment. While our results have improved, our performances have been especially average lately. How many players can you say have been very good recently?
Time to drop him. Even when he was playing well there were question marks over his inclusion because he inhibits our style of play. After such a bad performance, it's surely time to see what we can do without him.
Do you think he will be here in 3 or 4 years?
Part of me thinks he's just being used as a short term option to help cover up some of our weakneses (I.e. crap defenders) that hopefully will be adressd in the summer.
On that logic we might as well drop the whole team as in the 3-5-2 most of our players looked dreadful. The difference is that Fellaini's been one of our best players this season.
I can't understand the style of play thing. If you're expecting him to be one of our primary creative outlets then you're always going to be disappointed as that's not his job. His role is to play box-to-box and he's comfortably the best we have in that position in the squad at the moment.
Anyway, we saw what we could do without him when he had Herrera playing the box-to-box role in the diamond earlier in the season. We consistently got cut through by dross teams because Herrera and Di Maria are both too offensively minded and Blind was left exposed.
He has done better this season than I thought he would ever do in a United shirt. I still don't think he is what we need going forward. Can't be playing a guy like this and be challenging for prem or CL title.
I wouldn't throw him out of this team yet. He will be very useful but we need to go back to the diamond.
He has clearly proved his worth and for the first time has a place in the squad. But what that will never be is as a deep lying central midfielder, he just isn't good enough on the ball for it. Play him further up the field and you will see how effective he is. I can't believe first Moyes played him deeper then LVG decides to do it as well (aware that it is probably due to Carrick having to play in defene)
I'll explain: most of our best players will do best in a system where we protect the ball, and aim to have more possession than the opposition, but always favour the most purposeful pass, the one which gets us closest (in terms of the move, not necessarily the position on the pitch) towards scoring a goal. That's always been a big part of Van Gaal's so-called philosophy too - purposeful possession football.
Fellaini is not a good passer of the ball and not particularly comfortable in possession either. He is very good at certain things - defending and attacking aerial set-pieces, and holding up long balls forward. He's decent at adding bite to midfield although not much of an actual tackler and without the defensive nous to be a proper defensive midfielder. All of this adds up to a player who is useful when he's playing well, as he has done for the most part over the last five or six games. But even when he's playing well it inhibits that style of play because he's not comfortable enough receiving the ball under pressure and he too often misplaces passes or is forced to choose an overly negative pass. As a result the effectiveness of lots of our other players - Mata, Herrera, Di Maria, Rooney, Carrick - is limited, because the style that we are trying to play and the style that suits them best can't easily carry a player like Fellaini who isn't very good at it.
As we've seen, sometimes that's a sacrifice worth making in order to add his different qualities. But when he's not even playing well to his own strengths, as against Southampton when he was comfortably our worst player bar McNair, it becomes a bit of a no-brainer, in my opinion, to leave him out.
And he's not our best box-to-box midfielder. For one thing, one of the standard qualities of a good box-to-box player is that they are athletic, hard-working and dynamic in their movement. It's in the name - they move energetically from box to box. Fellaini is slow in terms of both pace and acceleration and not particularly mobile. Herrera is a much better b2b midfielder.
Both of them will last about 20min before they elbow each other out of the game. But then it's at OT, so maybe only Gerrard gets the red.
Wanyama did a good job at nullifying his targetman job, almost everytime de gea tried to pass him wanyama headed it away. Everyone but Carrick and RvP was sloppy in passing i don't know why, but he wasn't the worst of the worst, shouldn't bench him because of that, he will help alot against Liverpool.
There were a couple in this thread since the Southampton game bragging about how their average ratings for him this season were like 3.5 - obviously the caf average is 6.2 (mine, for what its worth, is 6.7). Personally I think 6.2 is a little bit less than what is deserved, although it will have taken a hit from the Southampton game of course.
Honestly I cant think of a single player who I could definitively say will be here in 4 years time.
Fellaini? I dont know. It all depends on LVG. I have a sneaking suspicion that we will keep him because he adds something very different to most midfielders, and that can always be valuable to have in a squad.
Now that the dust has settled a bit I am going to re-post my theory that part of the reason he appeared so poor was that he was (in my opinion) our one midfielder in the first half who was showing for the ball and giving the defenders an option.
As a result, when Fellaini did get the ball he didnt have many options himself for who to pass to. This doesnt excuse what was obviously a poor performance, but just an idea - the stats do back it up as Fellaini played substantially more passes than the other midfielders (and a higher completion rate, which was surprising given the first half).
I think you're overboard with your criticism. He's perfectly comfortable on the ball and he's a decent, if limited, passer, his stats bear that out. He covers a deceptive amount of distance and does a lot of defensive work, keeps the ball well and has shown the willingness and ability to run forwards with the ball when the opportunity has presented itself. Regardless of how badly he played against Southampton (which is also an exaggeration), one bad game in a shite formation doesn't mean he deserves dropping.
Obviously if you stick someone like Herrera into Fellaini's position the ball will zip around more, but you lose a lot of the attributes required from a box-to-box midfielder. With Herrera playing in that role we were on a knife-edge defensively against some of the weakest teams in the league because he was too offensively orientated to provide adequate support for Blind. It's no coincidence that when LVG put Fellaini in that role we became far more solid even against far better opposition
When we first signed Herrera I thought he was a perfect all-rounder but in reality its clear that he's far more suited to playing further up the pitch. It was unsurprising that his best game for us was against Hull when he had far less of a defensive brief. Personally I'd play them both in front of Carrick, I think that's comfortably our most balanced midfield.
Can you elaborate on this? What is this bite if he isn't that good at tackling?
Exactly this. I'll admit I was completely wrong in writing off Fellaini and Young (who was my MOTM vs. Southampton) before the season. He (Fellaini) has done well in the last 5 games except that absolute clusterfeck against Southampton where his touch was awful and play was just going right through him. In my opinion, he's not as good as Herrera but definitely good enough to be part of the squad. I'd like Herrera and Mata to be given more time together because the play is absolutely lovely when they're both starting.
He was wank against Southampton but I think some of the criticism labeled at him has been harsh, especially in regards to Wanyama bullying him. Sure he's meant to be a physical presence and I do expect more from him but Wanyama is a bloody beast. Physically, it's of no surprise Wanyama go the better of him, not sure many other players in the PL would.
Good post. Sums him up pretty accurately.
Unfortunately, you'll have to brace yourself up for the 'Clueless' and 'Not this shit again' posts.
I guess he probably meant providing some strength when it comes to jostling and duelling for the ball which in itself is tackling of sorts but lacking a bit in the department when it comes to measured tackles to dispossess runners.
Agreed. He's not defensively great and is absolutely woeful when he's in the defensive midfield role. Certain negative aspects of his game which always irks me are his blissful unawareness, tendency to ball watch and poor defensive positioning. He does seem to switch off in the defensive third and can't pick up runners at times.
There was an instance in the Southampton game when he was just jogging back ball watching in a deep position, when Pelle was making a run into the box in his vicinity and was ultimately picked out by Tadic, resulting in a good chance for them. This is not an isolated example either.
He's decent in the attacking box to box role where he can utilize his combative and physical game play. However, he's not refined enough offensively or that great of a defensive collosus for us to stick with him in the long term, esp in a a role where you need all round qualities and not just sheer physicality or a decent, albeit inconsistent short passing game. I also think his impact on us being more defensively solid and balanced recently has been overstated when its actually Carrick's performances (with the lack of Di Maria in the CM role in recent matches to a certain extent) which deserves the plaudits.
Make no mistake about it, I admire Fellaini for his resilience and he deserves praise for his recent good form. He can clearly do a job in the first team as of now and is rightly in the first team but moving on, we should get a better player in there, someone who can both offer steel and defensive nous whilst being more refined as a player. Don't think we need to ditch him and make a huge loss on him at the end of this season though; he can be used as a rotation option next season esp since we'd most likely be in CL as well.
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Would be incredibly harsh. He's excelled in this box to role in the last few games and deserves another go.
The entire team aside from De Gea, RVP and Young played like wank on Monday. It'd be incredibly unfair to drop Fellaini based on that game and Herrera(The Caf' new Kagawa) was just as bad.
@Brightonian and @Joga Bonito have both summed up Fellaini well. However, I do disagree with Joga about our defensive improvement with Fellaini in the team as Fellaini's aggression is very useful in causing issues for the opposition and winning the ball. He provided us what we have been lacking in the team (physical prowess and aggression), and this has played a big part in some of our recent performances.
However, he's not someone who can be a mainstay in our first team. He's a good squad option to have who can perform particular jobs and provide extra options on the attack, but he's never a player who can be a mainstay in our first team. His offensive and defensive abilities are not good enough for him to be a first-11 player. Defensively, he's very good if we are organised, which gives him the platform to play aggressively and win the ball. However, his reading of the game, awareness, and marking ability are not good enough for us. Offensively, he adds height and strength, and he's a nuisance to the opposition. However, he can't play players into dangerous areas, and his technique is average.
His qualities make him suitable to be a squad option who can be used to make things difficult for the opposition. However, we should go for someone better if we need a physically strong and aggressive midfielder for the first 11.
However, he's not someone who can be a mainstay in our first team. He's a good squad option to have who can perform particular jobs and provide extra options on the attack, but he's never a player who can be a mainstay in our first team. His offensive and defensive abilities are not good enough for him to be a first-11 player. Defensively, he's very good if we are organised, which gives him the platform to play aggressively and win the ball. However, his reading of the game, awareness, and marking ability are not good enough for us. Offensively, he adds height and strength, and he's a nuisance to the opposition. However, he can't play players into dangerous areas, and his technique is average.
His qualities make him suitable to be a squad option who can be used to make things difficult for the opposition. However, we should go for someone better if we need a physically strong and aggressive midfielder for the first 11.
Fair enough. I might have been a bit too under appreciative of his impact on the team. Agree with the rest of your post as well.
Fellaini added something in midfield that the others struggled with, a bit of physicality. I'm in no doubt Blind and Herrera struggled at times with this, and Herrera although game, at times could have been sent off with multi fouls being committed. I recon someone like Stootman offers us a bit of both. This would make both of them redundant and would give us some flexability in formations, in the same way Yaya does for city.
I always sulk when Carrick has to play in defence but right now it can't be helped. Fellani is a very unbalanced player but his physical attributes are needed in a team who continually get pushed of the ball. I think Blind and Herrera are still adapting and will eventually learn to cope with it but right now they are struggling.
The only thing I would like Fellani to do more of is to get forward and support that number 10 position. You saw Mata almost anonymous in the Southampton game and he is a player who needs others around him to bounce of. Fellani is very good at holding the ball and that provides a foothold in opposition territory, its up to players like Mata, Rooney, RVP to utilise the space he creates.
The only thing I would like Fellani to do more of is to get forward and support that number 10 position. You saw Mata almost anonymous in the Southampton game and he is a player who needs others around him to bounce of. Fellani is very good at holding the ball and that provides a foothold in opposition territory, its up to players like Mata, Rooney, RVP to utilise the space he creates.
I think the problem with Fellaini in that game was he was just generally rubbish. He was actually get the ball off Mata quite a lot but he kept losing it so Mata never got it back.
Has anyone seen this?
It will be interesting to see if he holds his spot. Liverpool are a decent pressing side when they click so that would work against him, but they are so vulnerable from set-pieces that he would be a huge asset.
We should use FIFA14 (Moyes) tactics. Ping in cross after cross with Fellaini playing as Second Striker with "Make runs into box" set to 100. RVP will mob up what doesn't go in directly.
Standard 16-0 with a Rodgers disconnection in the 86th minute.
Chelsea, Arsenal and City ( especially when we went down to 10 men) are decent pressing teams and Fellaini seemed to do fine. He just had a bad game against Southampton, as did most of our players. If he starts tomorrow, which I think he should, hopefully he'll have a good game.
Would be so funny to see him score tonight. Hopefully after elbowing Skrtel to win the header.
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