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Manchester United Fan View: Luke Shaw and Marouane Fellaini's plights sum up our state of purgatory

While the knives have certainly been out for Jose Mourinho and Manchester United at times this season, it’s clear that the club has progressed over the course of the last 12 months.

That’s not just down to their league position, though.

Romelu Lukaku is a more direct and potent goal-threat, while the always striking Zlatan Ibrahimovic has just joined the fray again, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are dovetailing together with pomp, speed, and excitement, Nemanja Matic has provided a fresh and solid foundation, which has in-turn brought the best out of Paul Pogba, whose contribution has become so telling that he is beginning to resemble a Paul Scholes-Roy Keane hybrid.

And that’s before we even get to the defence, and the fact that Mourinho’s meticulous organisational skills have turned the former also-rans Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo, and Chris Smallling into a ferocious, solid unit.

But Manchester United’s success has always been defined by their inability to stay still. They went from the Munich Air Tragedy to becoming the first ever English European Cup champions in just 10 years later, they won 13 Premier League titles in 21 years, as Sir Alex Ferguson was given the small gaps in between these triumphs to build three sides that rival the best the domestic game has ever seen.

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Patience doesn’t exist in football anymore, though, something that’s summed up with the plights of two Manchester United players; Marouane Fellaini and Luke Shaw.

Recently, the Belgian has bulldozed his way into the hearts of fans with his ungainly but undeniably effective performances for Louis Van Gaal and, especially, Jose Mourinho. On the other hand Shaw has had an excruciating few years. First of all he was cruelly taken down in his prime with a career-threatening injury against PSV Eindhoven in September, 2015, but he has since been treated just as cruelly by Mourinho, who has used him to highlight any shortcomings he has had to overcome as United manager.

Both players find themselves in a state of footballing purgatory at the moment, though. Last week it was revealed that Fellaini had rejected the latest contract offer from Manchester United, as he is seemingly intent on receiving a pay rise that reflected his current status at the club. It has been quite the turnaround for the Belgian, whose United career looked like it would forever be linked and tarnished because he was David Moyes’ first signing.

Moyes’ predecessors have been able to utilise Fellaini without the same scrutiny, and his ability to break-up play and physically impose any and all opponents means he has turned into a big-game player for United, akin to Darren Fletcher and Park Ji Sung under Sir Alex Ferguson. But while Fellaini’s impact has become more and more appreciated, he doesn’t have the skillset to take United to a higher echelon.

The same can’t be said of Shaw, who before his leg-break against PSV Eindhoven had United fans drooling at his potential. Especially since, at the age of 20, Shaw looked set to have secured the left-back spot for the next decade. But after United’s 3-1 defeat to Watford last September Mourinho publicly blamed Shaw, and he has since been mostly ostracised from the starting 11. Even when he has featured Mourinho has felt the need to slip in digs, though.


It has got to a point where Shaw clearly needs a fresh start, and the £30 million signing from Southampton, who at the time became the world’s most expensive teenager, is now allegedly being considered as a makeshift in a transfer for another full-back. Meanwhile, United are reportedly intent on securing down Fellaini to a new deal.

The now of Fellaini is clearly much more important that the potential of Shaw, and that just doesn’t feel right. Because while Fellaini has been deployed perfectly by Mourinho to get United to their current standing, Shaw had all the credentials to form a dynamic partnership with Anthony Martial or Marcus Rashford down United’s left side for years to come.

The fact that he probably won’t ever get that chance isn’t just a frustrating missed opportunity, but it also reflects poorly on Mourinho and sums up the problem with the immediacy of modern football, as there’s not just no time for either a player or a manager to try and right their wrongs anymore. If they do they are either overly scrutinised for doing so or attacked for making the wrong call in the first place. No wonder Mourinho is more likely to try and keep Fellaini around then, because he knows exactly what he is going to get. And in the current climate of the game that’s a premium.