There’s an unspoken tradition at Old Trafford whereby the most dazzling players bring up the rear of the line as the team walks out.
George Best, King Eric and Cristiano Ronaldo have all done it. It’s not just limited to players donning the number 7 shirt. It’s reserved for the attacking, creative players that the Theatre of Dreams is synonymous with.
Last Saturday, Marouane Fellaini did it.
Yes, that Marouane Fellaini. The only high level player that, when he completes a ten-yard pass it’s a nice surprise. The only player that viciously drives his elbow into an opponent’s head when jumping to head the ball and is shocked to see a yellow card brandished in his direction.
“In there for the aerial threat”, the most positive of fans opine. A notion so widespread yet so false it’s similar to “Young’s a great crosser” or “Nani had a great shot”. In reality what usually transpires is that Young’s tenth cross of the day finally finds a red shirt, Fellaini inadvertently lets his head go with gravity in some sort of direction towards the ball (I assume he has no control over it, it certainly appears that way) and it dribbles across the line. Yet he’s an aerial threat.
One wonders have these people actually watched him in action? Rarely does he actually jump; when he does he usually fouls his opponent to his constant bewilderment. When he does win the ball, he hasn’t the slightest notion what a footballing brain is, let alone possess one, so his header usually ends up in open space and is returned to the opposition.
He is the last lumbering ruins of the David Moyes era, but it is his new Dutch boss who uses him so inexplicably. At least Moyes didn’t just play hoof-ball towards the ex-Everton man.
A little piece of United died that day when United stole an undeserved point from West Ham after drilling the ball towards Fellaini, and it fell to Daley Blind to volley home the equaliser for “long-ball United” as Big Sam so succinctly described his United counterpart’s painful game plan. At Manchester United, that kind of “football” is simply not acceptable and neither is the languishing Belgian.
This might seem a bit hyperbolic but as far I’m concerned, Fellaini is the worst player to ever pull on the famed United strip. Yes, Bebe, Djemba-Djemba et al were pretty poor but they undeniably possessed natural talent. Admittedly, very little of it but they did. Fellaini possesses absolutely none. He cannot pass, he cannot shoot with any semblance of consistency, he cannot tackle without fouling. He is a pathetic joke that wore far too thin, far too long ago.
He also has a detrimental impact on his teammates, which the aforementioned Djemba-Djembas of this world do not. His size and shape means he is, like it or not, a target man. So much so that players like Blind – truly intelligent players – will attempt sixty-yard passes to his general vicinity.
He could be marked by three players and others free, and yet from set-pieces he’s always the target. It’s as predictable as a Daniel Sturridge injury.
“Fellaini is undroppable”, Louis van Gaal once said of the Belgian.
Not just his dropping, but his outright sale would bring back many of the United fans Van Gaal is losing so rapidly.
