Marouane Fellaini not the answer to Manchester United's woes

Marouane Fellaini

Marouane Fellaini, the fuzzy haired, hard working Belgian midfielder was bought by the new Manchester United boss David Moyes on the Transfer Deadline Day of the English Premier League.

The deal was stalled till Fellaini handed in a transfer request at Goodison Park on the very last day of the window. The Belgian cost United £27.5 million, £4 million more than the buy-out clause of £23.5 million.

In order to bag him cheap, Moyes created a lot of fuss, with the pursuit of Leighton Baines in a joint bid also contributing to the haywire.

Now that the so-called hard working midfielder is at United’s helm, the question that arises – is Marouane Fellaini worth being the fourth biggest buy in Manchester United’s transfer business? The answer would be – No!

When the need of the period is a combative, box to box, Scholsey or Keane kind of a midfielder, Fellaini has found himself short of lethal passing vision and combative attributes.

The 6 ft 41/2 in tall footballer who is shy on the camera and short of ideas for the time being, is playing it really safe on the pitch at the moment just to be in the team line-up of his manager. The only department he looks solid is ‘heading’ wherever it may be.

With the out and out star studded team sheet of the Red Devils where the players of the youth setup like Januzaj are also forging their way into the first team, Fellaini hasn’t provided any thing valuable in the middle of the park, and neither in attack nor in the midfield.

According to Squawka, the performance score of Fellaini is just 35 and the average pass length is 17m, which is bettered by the veteran defender Rio Ferdinand, whose average pass is 21m. Patrice Evra bettered the chances created for the team with 8 as compared to Fellaini’s zero.

Although in 2012-13, at Everton, he scored 11 goals in 31 appearances, grabbing a mere 5 assists in the Premier League, playing just behind the striker Nikica Jelavi? in a team where he was a guaranteed starter.

Out of the 11 goals he scored last year, just 2 of them were against the teams in top 3, also collecting yellow cards against the Manchester teams in 3 out of 4 ties.

Last year, he had no incisive passes to show for his play-making capabilities as all the chances he created were from knock downs and flicks and push-ons.

Fellaini is not exactly an agile play-maker, neither a combative dynamite nor a big match player, as he has a tendency to lose patience against top teams where he is unable to take the ball back from the opponents while looking lost in the field.

In the previous week’s Manchester derby, where he started his first match for Red Devils, Marouane Fellaini’s performance was considerably lower than his counterpart, Yaya Touré.

The way he portrayed his game at Etihad Stadium was by no means physically apt or pleasing to the eye. His snail like speed was exposed in the derby where the likes of Jesus Navas, Samir Nasri as well as Vincent Kompany got passed him very easily for the 3rd and 4th goal. Fellaini rather struggled for possession and was rendered a mere spectator.

The body language that he wears looks very down to the viewers where he takes small steps while running and just makes few cute passes to Carrick, leaving Carrick to make the vigilant moves. He hasn’t sprinted with or without the ball since he made his entry on to the field in the debut against Crystal Palace.

He is a real put off until now with Tom Cleverly, Phil Jones and Adnan Januzaj looking more impressive than the former Standard Liège player.

The partnership with Michael Carrick will take a long time to click it seems. Although Fellaini is claimed to be improving and adapting to the methods at Old Trafford, Manchester United can’t rely on the new recruit to bow them out of troubles in the immediate upcoming fixtures, especially since he is not a big match pick.

Marouane Fellaini is certainly not the midfielder United were looking for to fill in the gaps for Paul Scholes and Roy Keane.