Belgian international midfielder Marouane Fellaini is expected to leave Manchester United before the summer transfer window shuts. It is understood that the player has been told he’s surplus to requirements under Louis van Gaal, and a deal to take Fellaini to Rafa Benitez’s Napoli is thought to be close, either as a permanent move (United’s preference) or a season-long loan with the idea of signing the midfielder in 12 months’ time.
Fellaini has come to personify all that was wrong with the Moyes era: a lack of vision, ambition and decisiveness. Signed in a desperate panic on transfer deadline day last summer for £4.5m more than his release clause, the Belgian was acquired only after long and embarrassingly public pursuits of Cesc Fabregas, Thiago, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale came to nothing, and a last-gasp bid for Ander Herrera (who joined the Red Devils this summer) was botched.
Fellaini is neither a “typical” United player, nor one worthy of a £27.5m price tag (their fourth most expensive signing ever at the time). The latter isn’t his fault: it reflects more on Moyes’s desperation and chosen style of play that he deemed such an outlay for Fellaini – effectively a long-ball wrecking machine – justified. Back in 2012, while Sir Alex Ferguson was still master of all he purveyed at Old Trafford, he described Fellaini as a “big, tall, gangly lad who they just lumped the ball up to.” It’s a job he did extremely well for Everton and Moyes, scoring 11 goals and six assists in his last season with the Toffees. But that’s not a philosophy that resonates with United fans; one of the reasons Moyes was moved on. It’s telling that Everton – now playing a passing game under Roberto Martinez – have not been credited with an interest in bringing their former player back to Goodison Park.
Fellaini isn’t the first to be heading out the Old Trafford exit this summer, nor will he be the last. A day of reckoning is coming to Manchester, with the likes of Nani, Tom Cleverley, Javier Hernandez and Wilfred Zaha all candidates for the chop. With no Champions League football this year, there is a feeling at United that they can get by with a more compact squad this season, just as Liverpool did in 2013-14. Nevertheless, you can be sure new faces will be coming in between now and September, and they want be tall, gangly lads to lump the ball to.
