Marouane Fellaini remains the most unpleasant reminder of the most unpleasant season in Manchester United’s Premier League history, otherwise known as the David Moyes Era. Bought for £27.5 million in the last seconds of the transfer deadline day, earning wages of around £80,000 a week, Marouane Fellaini is proving to be an overpriced, expensive mistake.
When you look at Manchester United midfielders in the years gone by, you see legendary names like Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Ryan Giggs in his last few seasons, Bryan Robson and so on. Fellaini doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those names. He’d probably end up with the Djemba Djembas and the Verons.
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Fellaini’s place in this United team is unknown. In fact, everything relating to him at Manchester United seems to be unknown. Questions such as “What were the board thinking when they let Moyes reject the chance to sign Ozil and Fabregas, but pay over the odds for Fellaini?”, “How is Marouane Fellaini consistently starting for Manchester United?”, “Why is he still at this football club?” have been asked time and time again by Manchester United fans and neutrals alike.
No one knows his best position. Under Louis van Gaal, he has played as a striker, an attacking midfielder, a central midfielder and a defensive midfielder yet he has never made an impact in any one of those positions.
Last season, Fellaini seemed to enjoy a resurgence of some sort. A throwback to the form he was known for on Merseyside. He scored 6 crucial goals in the league as Manchester United achieved their target of qualifying for the Champions League. One good season doesn’t make you a good player however and Manchester United of all teams should know that well with players such as Anderson and Kleberson coming off the back of an encouraging reputation and leaving with quite the opposite.
One of Manchester United’s main problems right now is that they have too many squad players. Players who should be used as back up and for rotation purposes. And too many of those squad players are being used as first team players, Fellaini being a key example of this.
Marouane Fellaini epitomizes United’s downfall as a club since Sir Alex stepped down. He offers nothing to this team. His physical presence and ability in the air were probably the only good attributes he possessed, but even those so called abilities are myths.
Here are some stats to give you a slight idea as to how much Fellaini drags United down every time he plays:
Tackles | 37% | 63% |
Headed Duels | 48% | 52% |
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Manchester United have a win record of 12 games in 24 appearances when Fellaini has not played as opposed to just 6 wins in 15 games he has played in.
United fans have made their stance on the 28-year old known on Twitter, with many labelling him a ‘tree’. User @BelfastManc posted: ‘Hopefully Fellaini is on his way this transfer window. Don’t know what van gaal see’s (sic) in the big useless f***ing tree.’
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Another, Donie Hartney said: ‘Marouane Fellaini, robbing a living as an @ManUtd player.’
With all the talk of Louis van Gaal’s time at Manchester United coming to an end, fans will be hoping to see the Belgian walk out the door alongside him.