I don't really understand how a manager cna think having Matic and Fellaini in the same midfield is a good idea.
Chelsea got rid of Matic presumably because he was too slow to enable their midfield to play the way they wanted it to. The thing is, I can see how Matic can be used in an effective midfield. He breaks up play, he is quite clever with when he presses the ball. He is composed on the ball and can pick out a pass. You can have him doing a job in a very good midfield, although he wouldn't be the one running it...but if he's doing what he does well it frees up others to be quicker and more adventorous with the ball and their positioning.
But in order to do that, the rest of your midfield really has to be on point and have a purpose...so what is the purpose of Fellaini? On Wednesday it was to lumber around the pitch fouling everyone. In other games it's to stand in bits of the pitch so the ball can be hoofed to usually nowhere near him anyway, or when it does go near him, just bounces off his head in whatever direction in happens to go in. Occasionally he will have an effective game in midfield, however this will be when he's doing the SAME job that Matic is doing. You do not need two people doing this. It's barely ok to have one person doing this and not offering anything in terms of mobility or speed or moving/passing the ball up the pitch.
Then you have Pogba who himself likes to do things in his own time, in his own universe. Annother who you can barely get away with playing in an effective midfield IF the rest of the midfield was completely on point.
We have Fred, Herrera, Pereira...all mobile players, all capable of playing in an effective midfield without the need to compensate for their lack of speed/mobility, or insistence on taking 500 touches and spinning round in a circle 3 times before playing a pass. If you don't want to use them, why are they here? The oonly reason not to use them is if the system you have works fine without them.
Even if you removed the sulking, weird Mourinho behaviour, lack of confidence, whatever it is in Fellaini's contract that dictates he is never alllowed to play in an actual position on the pitch, a trio of Matic, Fellaini and Pogba is never going to be effective. It is too slow, it isn't mobile.
Also, more allarmingly, this post form 2012:
It was the same for most of last season. I'm saying more it's a worry that it's STILL not been addressed rather than it's something that's cropped up in pre-season. Although our form in pre-season does seem to carry over into the season itself more often than not too.
I find it a chore watching us play these days to be honest. No one moves and we pass the ball much slower and less purposefully than any other side at a similar level to us. It only seems to change when we get two or three of the younger players in the side and linking up in the middle third of the pitch....or when we start panicking.
Otherwise the game is a complete deadzone whenever we have the ball. We pass it with literally zero purpose other than for passing's sake, then just lump it out wide and let Valencia, Nani or Young try and beat their men on their own. It's nearly always Scholes that lumps it out wide too. Pretty much all you have to do is mark him (which is pretty easy when none of our players are moving anywhere), or just stand someone near our wingers to cut out the passes, and we just seem to fall apart.
I've been impressed by Kagawa, but he shouldn't be able to look like a fecking god just by moving into useful positions to receive the ball. All of our players should be doing this. It's a fecking basic requirement for any team that doesn't want to play like Stoke or England.
It still sounds exactly like how we play. There are only two real differences. 1) Instead of Scholes passing the ball accurately out wide, we just hoof it to nowhere instead, and b) Even Stoke and England have realised they don't want to play like Stoke or England anymore.
