Manchester Derby Is Ideal Test for Marouane Fellaini to Prove United Improvement

If you had told a Manchester United fan two weeks ago that Marouane Fellaini would be starting the derby, they would have either laughed or cried.

But after impressive performances against West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea, it would be a surprise if the Belgian midfielder isn't named in Louis van Gaal's team at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

It's been a long road back for a player who looked almost certain to leave this summer. And it's not over yet. 

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Fellaini has already faced plenty of obstacles along the way. Last season, he became a symbol of everything that the fans believed was wrong with David Moyes' reign. 

He was signed from Moyes' former club for a hugely inflated price. It didn't help with the accusations that Moyes would eventually turn United into Everton and that he didn't have enough experience of landing high-end targets. 

Fellaini's performances last season were slow and laboured. So were United's. Moyes' time at Old Trafford was cut short, and it looked like Fellaini's would be too. It might well have been had he not picked up an ankle injury on the opening day of the season and spent the end of the transfer window in the treatment room. 

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Fellaini's first season will be remembered as a disaster. But that perhaps doesn't paint a fair picture. He wasn't helped by wrist and back injuries, and he did all right in the odd game here and there.

But at £27.5 million, he's the seventh most expensive player in United's history, and the fans expected much more than adequate performances against West Brom and Crystal Palace.

For that amount of money, they wanted a midfielder who could take control of the biggest games. And it was in the two games against Manchester City in particular that Fellaini looked most out of his depth.

And so it won't be until he starts to dominate games against City—or Chelsea, or Arsenal, or Liverpool—that the fans will start to believe he is a United player.

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Yaya Toure's dominance at City has been especially hard for United supporters to watch. They've felt for a long time there's been a gaping hole in their midfield, since it became clear Owen Hargreaves would never get over his injury problems. 

Watching Fellaini get steamrollered by the Ivorian home and away last season only reminded them that the void was still there. But if he can nullify Toure in the way he kept Cesc Fabregas quiet against Chelsea, he'll start to win over even the most sceptical supporters.

And he'll have the United fans inside the Etihad Stadium on Sunday finally laughing for all the right reasons.