Got to agree with you there, he really isn't firing at all. I thought yesterday we should have gone for just Rooney up top or Di Maria and then flooded the midfield. I thought we were going to get turned over easily after a 20 minutes and thought Smalling and De Gea were excellent. I thought Fellaini had a good game yesterday and made some key challenges. Its all too easy to target him as the root of United's problems, but he is a patch of good form and proving to be a handful.
He should stick Rooney up in his tod until Falcao is back, and then he could bring Mata back in to play behind him.
9 in play touches yesterday with one in the box. Not good enough. Hes clearly not going to play himself back into form without being involved.
Another point missed on Fellaini is the way he reacted to Wilshire's attempted head butt. Could easily have made in look worse, but just walked away from it. Ref should have issued a straight red anyway, but he bottled it.
They really are butt hurt on the Goon board. Said weeks ago it was a banker for you lot. No matter how bad Man Utd might become, no matter who is in charge you will *always* find a way to beat that idiot Wenger. Also made me £150, cheers lads.
[video=youtube;3NaXHnYJgDE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NaXHnYJgDE&feature=youtu.be&list=UUBTy8j2cPy6zw68godcE7MQ[/video]
Appreciate the reasoned response But I question just what he offers defensively? He was chasing shadows for much of the first half in that chaos at the start, he couldn't get near their midfield. He only attempted about 8 or 9 tackles in the whole match, and only won about 3 or 4 (mostly at the end of the match). I counted only 6 forward passes in the opposition half - at least 4 of which he gave the ball away or were intercepted. And the rest of his passing (the vast majority) were back passes. I don't make Fellaini a scapegoat at all. It's not his fault he's out of his depth, but it is LVG's fault for playing him. I also credited Fellaini for his performance off the bench against West Brom. But he came on as an attacking player (not a defensive one) something that many at the time accepted was how he excelled at Everton. And coming off the bench is reasonable expectations. I say that because he made about 4 or 5 clearances, nearly all of which were in the last 10 mins. There was also a lovely weighted pass he made to Di Maria. All of this is evident when actually watching what the player does. I wish ppl would watch him rather than look at the result and think that he actually contributed to it when he didn't. Handbags at dawn against Wilshere and one nice pass to Di Maria really doesn't justify his place in a starting line up. I do take on board what you're saying though, but I'll be gutted if he starts against Hull.
The bitterness sure is strong on the Arse board right now. They are all sounding like little Wengerites that's for sure, banging on about their possession, chances, bla bla bla. Fact is, le Arse are just ****e.
I think you are being a bit harsh to be honest. He is never going to be a passing maestro but he can perform a decent job and did yesterday. I certainly remember him making a couple of timely tackles yesterday and he also set Di Maria on his way for Rooney's goal. The problems we are currently facing are pretty much related to an unsettled and inexperienced back four, not Fellaini IMO. On the subject of players who seem to be favourites for stick, I thought Young played very well when he came on.
Our injury decimated defence has now conceded 3 league goals fewer than Liverpool's. Anyone agree that chucking £20million at the wrong centre half isn't necessarily the best policy?
TBH Phil I keep hearing he performed a decent job, but nobody can actually pinpoint examples. I could understand this: United have a problem with defence. LVG sacrifices our attacking play for a player to support the defence. Fellaini comes in, reads the game well, shields the defence, intercepts passes, plays the simple ball to help build our attacks. Then I would applaud LVG all day long. But that isn't happening. Only a perception in the minds of some United fans based on the result. How did he actually help the defence? Did he win tackles? No. Did he intercept passes? No. Other than the pass to Di Maria, did he set off any attacks? No. Did he keep hold of possession? No. Did he win headers? Yes. NOW here's the most important question? If the answer to the previous questions is no, then what exactly did he do that offered more to the team than Mata or Herrera? Btw Phil imo the problem wasn't the defence, although playing 3 at the back contributed. The problem was playing 3-4-1-2 which effectively meant 7 behind the ball (while carrying Valencia and Fellaini) and therefore inviting pressure onto our defence, not having an outlet in midfield to our front 2. Our players in the first half hour looked lost tbh, didn't understand what LVG wanted from them.
I know what you're saying mate but I don't think all of our issues are down to playing Fellaini. He added a physicality that I believe caused them some problems and of course I am not going to list loads of occasions he contributed but I feel he did as much as many other team members. I must admit my heart sank a bit when I saw the team sheet as I thought we would have been overrun in midfield due in part to formation. I was hoping that Herrera would have played in place of RVP which I think would have helped, especially if we put Di Maria up top. I'm not sure Mata would have been effective yesterday as I feel he would have been too weak in the challenge and too slow. At least we got a result though!
Liverpool conceded more today than our injury decimated defence has in our last 4. We played chelsea, city, palace and arsenal.
