Marouane Fellaini Must Adapt to Manchester United, Not the Other Way Around

Let's get one thing straight. Marouane Fellaini is not a bad footballer.

It's safe to assume he was the best player in his school team. You would imagine he was the star of Anderlecht's youth team as a youngster.

His performances for Standard Liege convinced Everton to spend £15m to bring him to the Premier League where he spent five years as a regular in a top-half team.

He's the proud owner of nearly 50 international caps for Belgium and is part of their golden generation. They will begin the World Cup in Brazil next summer as one of the top seeds alongside Spain, Argentina, Germany and the hosts.

He might look a little bit like Marv from Home Alone, but that's not the CV of a charlatan. 

That's not to say he hasn't struggled since moving from Everton to Manchester United on deadline day. He has.

In the team's last two Premier League games, against Fulham and Arsenal, David Moyes has paired Michael Carrick in central midfield with Phil Jones, a natural defender. All the while Fellaini, United's second most expensive midfielder behind Juan Sebastian Veron, has watched from the bench.

Moyes admitted this week that Fellaini hasn't been good enough in his five starts so far this season. But he also pointed the finger at the team as a whole for not playing well enough to smooth his integration.

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"I think we are yet to see him properly. I think he can be a bigger influence. But he will be fine for us.

"He knows he can play better. I think when he came into the team we were not playing as well as we would have hoped.

"There have been a couple of games where I thought he threatened to be that big influence. I thought in the opening part of the game against Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine he was an influence and made the goal for Danny Welbeck.

"There have been moments where he has threatened to become that influence but I think maybe being booked in some of the games has taken a bit of that away but there have been signs.

"We have to give him a chance to get bedded in well enough and for us probably to be playing well enough to accommodate him."

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It was a very honest assessment from Moyes. His point was that it's easier for a new signing to find his feet in a winning team, but Fellaini hasn't held up his end of the deal by helping that happen.

Moyes wants Fellaini to form part of his first-choice midfield. After all, very few clubs, if any, can afford to spend £27.5m on a squad player. 

But as long as Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie are fit and in form, Moyes will continue to play 4-4-2, or a variation of it. That means Fellaini will get a majority of his games in a midfield two alongside Carrick. It may well be Tom Cleverley this weekend at Cardiff with Carrick and Jones out injured.

At Everton, Moyes hardly ever played with two strikers (he was more likely to play with none at all than two). It meant Fellaini could be used in a three-man midfield, often doing a very good job.

But without the extra man, it naturally puts more pressure on Fellaini's mobility and vision and that's going to take some time to get used to.

What Fellaini will find at United is that Moyes won't change his system for the Belgian's benefit. At Everton, he was one of Moyes' match winners. At United, surrounded by Rooney, Van Persie, he's a cog in the machine. A very talented cog, but a cog nonetheless.

As Moyes has said, United fans haven't yet seen the best of Fellaini. But the United manager won't be making drastic changes to get the best out of his summer signing. 

It's up to Fellaini to help get the best out of United.