Fellaini V Anichebe

haha.

I think you last sentence was always known to the fans.

He's a very effective individual but is not essential to the team's play or success, ultimately no one is.

Maybe taking away one of Bainaar or Jelavic results in a bigger headache... then Mirallas... hmmm, then that's about it.

As for the much maligned Anichebe coming in a things change, well, that's football.

It's not the loss of any player that worries me, it's the loss of Moyes. We have lost many of our top players over the years and we have usually gone on to do better. When we finished 17th and then lost our two best players Rooney and Gravesen, it proved that we don't have to rely on any individual.

Yes, what will make Moyes sign a new contract? We don't have £10-20M transfer fund to offer him and he knows that. So what will it (realistically) take?

Also, which footballer is gonna sign for a manager who is only contracted to be at the club for 6 months?

I don't understand the situation

DM is definitely our most important acquisition and the tardiness of his committing himself to us is a worry.
I really think he will stay unless he is not financially supported to some extent.
He now has a strong hand as the present team is the best he has had since he joined us.
He knows that the first team is pretty short of decent cover and he has had to use stopgap freebees to fill the bench as the youngsters do not seem up to par.

Its no coincidence that the likes of Hahnemann, MacFadden and Hitzelsberger have been brought in on short term contracts.
Its been a case of filling gaps and hoping for the best.
We have unloaded virtually all our top earners and we have received money for Rodwell, Cahill, Arteta, Yakubu, Yobo, Vaughan, Beckford and others.
If 20 million cannot be raised then its a crying shame.

Our gates are great and we consistently finish above tenth. When all the above is added together some money must be available to enable our challenge to become a serious one.

If Moyes left, how many players would go with him?

If Moyes left we will get by without him, only problem is who Kenwright will pick. He might fuck it up, or go by Moyes's recommendations. We can try and get Wenger if he leaves. Neville would probably take over as interim coach until the right manager is found.

Fellaini will be sold and Moyes knows it, that is why he will not sign until he gets what he wants. Moyes has until the end of this season to prove he is worth the huge salary he gets, if he fails to get CL or EL football then I want him gone.

I want a manager that gives youth a REAL chance, Moyes has not given Duffy, Junior, Barkley or Vellios any real playing time so that simply can not continue if we are to move forward. We can not just buy, we must develop our own players as well. Barkley is a top talent, he is highly rated, but Moyes is too afraid to play him. That to me is just not good enough.

Fellaini will be missed against Chelsea. Beating West Ham and Wigan is what we should be doing. The likes of Chelsea we need our best players.

Although we've claimed maximum points of late, missing Mirallas seems to hurt more than Fellaini. Something about true pace puts us on the front foot from the off.

I've got a feeling Gibson, his hamstrung brother, will also be a considerable loss in the nearby future. However a year ago I'd never heard of Mirallas and I was uh unaware of Gibson's true quality...

Moyes — our potential biggest loss by a mile.

I think the Fellani as striker has run its course, and this is the 2nd time (first being West Brom) in which they man marked him out of the game and a lot more teams will be taking note. When he comes back I would like to see him swap with Ossie or even interchange with Ossie just to give the defenders something to think about.

But can we do without him? of course we can, do we want to do without him GTF!!

"Our gates are great and we consistently finish above tenth. When all the above is added together some money must be available to enable our challenge to become a serious one."

But you're forgetting the other side of the equation Trevor, debt.

We are continually running at a loss and the only way to fund new players is by selling existing players or the board put their hands in their pockets and pull out more than lint.

David. Why on earth would you want our best goalscorer this and most influential player in the final third this season to swap with Leon Osman? Osman is neat in possession and a good fit with Gibson in the middle, but if you are looking for a clinical finish or a quality final ball, he fails more often than not. Fellaini has been the most dominant big man in the prem outside of Yaya Toure. There is a reason he's highly coveted by nearly every major club. He loses his cool in one game and now Leon Osman is the answer in front of goal after a hilariously lucky deflection. Yeah. Ok.

Peter Jones (#379) erm... Osman has had a really good season, so it isn't based on one spawny goal. Plus Fellaini himself thinks his best position is DM. I'm pro Moyes but not slavishly so, and I thought that, when Shawcross was roughing up Fellaini and he obviously didn't like it and played really poorly that day, Moyes should've switched Ossie and Fellaini. Remember in the game vs Spurs he went back to his natural position and reveled in the space he was given.

But more to the point I think a lot of teams will start to do the 'Shawcross treatment' on Fellaini knowing that he gets wound up

Fellaini is obviously a big miss, the sign of a good club is showing they can manage without them. I agree that beating the teams we have without him are teams we should really be beating anyway so the test will come against the likes of Chelski.

I also agree with the point that Moyes would be a much bigger loss. I have a strong feeling though that Moyes won't go anywhere. He knows he has a great side capable of challenging at the top and I think he is just using the contract situation to his advantage when bargaining for more funds.

The board got a real shock in the summer when there was a big chance he may move to Spurs and he will have seen this. I expect some funds to be found in January and even more in the summer (although I'm not talking £50M!)

I've alawys maintained Fellaini's best position is in the middle. He has the attributes for it - strength, work rate, good control, decent (standing) tackle, a fair shot, his passing is pretty good overall and he is quite quick in full stride.
As a second striker he is more than capable, but we should buy someone to support Jelavic as a priority and add the big man to competition for centre mid.
Anichebe is never going to be good enough for a regular first team spot.

James # 426 Anichabe is good enough to be second choice for the lone striker role and challenge Jellavic for the role.

No ned to buy a number 10 to play behind either of them, we already have Osman with his quick feet to both score a few and provide the chances for Jeli. After 60 mins we bring on Barkley in place of Osman - he can shoot strongly with both feet and is also good with his head. Once he has gained sufficient experience then he can be considered for the box to box midfielder role (to replace Fellani).

Phil, Anichebes goal record suggests otherwise.
And as for Barkley, the lad needs to be given a chance, instead of getting splinters in his arse!

Fellaini has been instrumental in some games, and absolutely gash in some others. When he's on his game, he's our main goal threat - either directly or via assists, as Jelavic couldn't score in a brothel at the moment.

I'm always confident if we have a player sent off, we'll cope, because in a few games this season we have played with 10 men when Fellaini's off his game.

If he can find some consistency, he'll stick another £5m-£10m on his sale price.

David Hallwood, I don't think it's a case of Fellaini as a forward having run it's coarse. It's a case of playing him there against some teams, and not against others. Against Stoke, you could look at it two ways. Firstly, they are a big strong side, so the natural plan would be to put big strong guys up front to try to overcome their brutal defence. Otherwise, maybe playing Fellaini up forward against such brutes was a waste, as he was always going to have his work cut out for up there, but maybe could have been more effective in the middle. But not every team has a back four like that.

To the original article, I know Vic has a good goal-to-game ratio for the last 12 months, but whenever his name is on the team sheet, doesn't it scream "depleted side" to you?

Fellaini

......is the single most important player in our squad. If he plays well then the team tends to do likewise, such is his influence. I'm not fooled in any way by our two recent wins. We've not looked like ourselves in either game, even though we were worth the wins. Fellaini lifts us to a higher level.

Good for bringing that up, John. While we more or less deserved our last two wins, it was Wigan and West Ham, and we beat them both 2 - 1, with luck being on our side a lot of the way.

Hopefully the players were just saving themselves for the visit of the Champions of Europe tomorrow.

Problem is Jelavic is suffering from a lack of form, and it takes away our whole goalscoring threat, and without Fellaini as well that makes us a top ten team , not a top 4 team.

We also miss Mirallas very much so our squad is now too thin to be able to hurt Chelsea at all.
Unless Jelavic returns to his goalscoring form then we will probably lose the Chelsea game, they have too many top class players who are able to score goals.
All we have is Anichebe and an out of form Jelavic.

We need a lot of luck to beat Chelsea today, who is going to score the goals is the biggest question.