The long-awaited emergence of Marouane Fellaini as a contributing member of the Manchester United squad was confirmed by the Belgian’s goal in the FA Cup at Preston on Monday night.
Fellaini’s increasing importance to United, however, perhaps says as much about the learning curve being experienced by his manager Louis van Gaal in English football as it does about his own improvement.
Van Gaal arrived at Old Trafford last summer intent on playing a certain style of football. Almost immediately he instructed United chief executive Ed Woodward to try to sell Fellaini, saying privately that he was ‘not a Manchester United player’.
Had a foot injury not got in the way of a subsequent loan move to Napoli last August, Fellaini would no longer be at the club. Van Gaal, however, has realised in recent weeks just how useful the Belgian can be when he needs to change his team’s style of play.
At West Ham in the Barclays Premier League 10 days ago, Fellaini’s introduction as a substitute earned United a late goal and a point from a 1-1 draw.
On Monday in Lancashire, Fellaini’s switch to the focal point of a hastily restructured 4-4-2 formation earned him what was effectively the winning goal in a 3-1 United win.
‘I have used Fellaini a lot of times already — more than ever and he scores more than ever,’ Van Gaal said. ‘Fellaini is a player that when we cannot beat the pressure with quality we can always beat the pressure another way. Now I have played him for the first time in his preferred position.’
Those who remember Fellaini at his best — for Everton and for Belgium — will recall him using his height and physical presence high up the field. He was, during his time under David Moyes at Goodison Park, a talented and effective attacking outlet.
Moyes once described Fellaini as having the best chest trap in world football. It was a peculiar statement and sounded almost as though the 27–year-old was being damned with faint praise. More interestingly, it was a talent that Moyes seemed to negate after he brought Fellaini to United for £27.5million by trying to turn him in to a holding midfield player. It was a plan that did not work and it is from positions in the final third of the field that Fellaini is now beginning to exert an influence once again.
‘The manager is the boss but of course I like that,’ said Fellaini yesterday when asked about a role up front. ‘I can score goals from there so I am happy.
‘We changed the game when the manager switched things and I went forward. It worked well.’
Van Gaal certainly did not envisage finding a place for Fellaini in the forward line when he replaced Moyes last year. The Dutch coach understandably felt that Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, Angel di Maria, James Wilson and Radamel Falcao would provide him with enough options in those positions.
Van Gaal did not think there was room in his midfield for Fellaini either but, as time has passed, the United manager has realised that English football — and particularly the Barclays Premier League — asks so many different questions and requires so many different answers that players like Fellaini can become useful.
Van Gaal will talk all day about his love of attractive football but he is, above all, a pragmatist and always has been.
This is the man who shunted the great Brazilian striker Rivaldo out to the wing during his years at Barcelona, the man who used Dirk Kuyt in five different positions in one Holland game — including right-back and centre forward — during a World Cup knockout game last summer.
Currently, the United manager has players like Falcao and Van Persie who are, by their own standards, failing to do their jobs. Falcao was wretched against Preston and, with Van Persie expected to be fit for the game at Swansea on Saturday, one wonders when we will see the Colombian in the starting line-up again.
It is, therefore, at times like this that players such as Fellaini start to become rather useful. For reasons that are not entirely his fault, United’s big Belgian will forever be associated with Moyes’ troubled tenure at Old Trafford. He will be known as the big-money signing who bombed.
Footballers are allowed more than one life at a club, though, more than one chance. Fellaini will never be an iconic Manchester United footballer but his contributions are becoming frequent enough to have already proved a few people wrong, including his own manager.
WHAT THE STATS SAY
MAROUANE FELLAINI has scored the same number of goals since January 1 (two) as he managed in the first half of the season. The Belgian has been used more and more by Louis van Gaal in recent weeks — and the Dutchman’s decision is paying off. United have won 58.9 per cent of the games Fellaini has played in this season, compared to 45.5 per cent when he has not featured. – Daily Mail