Fair play to him.
It would've been easy for Marouane Fellaini to ignore all the criticism and hide from his detractors. But he has come out, stood up tall and stared them down, one-by-one. With a bare-faced lie.
The Manchester United central midfielder (no offence intended, United fans) has used his elbows in many of his games. Whether he's deliberately hitting people with them, or opposition players are simply attacking his elbows with their cheekbones, we may never know.
https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/710575582615113728
But his elbows are here and they are real. If you look
through the eyes of Louis van Gaal at Fellaini's performance on Thursday against Liverpool, you could nearly argue that the Belgian was man of the match and that he is just misunderstood.
That's certainly what he seems to think anyway. Because when he elbows other players - he's doing that for his own protection. He's doing it to defend himself. That's all.
"I don't want to elbow someone. I just defend myself," he said in an interview with
Football Focus, and he said it with a straight face.
"Okay, I'm physical. I like to win my challenge - that's English football as well. But I am not a dirty player.
"I just defend myself. I like to win my challenges when I play a game. In England, there are a lot of physical challenges so, if you want to win the game, you have to be aggressive.
"I never want to injure a player or to be bad. I'm not like that. I just defend myself."
You have to respect that - the brass neck he has on him.
