Manchester United midfielder Marouane Fellaini has taken a pop at former Liverpool defender and Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher over his comments at the back-end of last season in an interview with Belgian magazine Sport/Foot [via SportWitness].
From about March onwards it seemed like every time Fellaini stepped on a football pitch there was an incident, be it an elbow or... No, it was pretty much always an elbow, and there were numerous. These incidents prompted pundits and fans alike, including many Man Utd fans it must be said, to publicly condemn Fellaini for his actions, but dug the boot in as hard as Carragher.
After an elbow on Robert Huth in May of last year, Carragher dedicated an entire column in the Daily Mail to Fellaini where he labelled the Belgian a 'menace' and admitted that he hoped he never saw him play Premier League football again.
When he first arrived in the Premier League, as Everton's record £15million signing in 2008, he was booked five times in his first two months. The assumption, initially, was to put it down to exuberance, awkwardness and immaturity. But here we are, eight years on, and he hasn't changed.
The figures are damning. He has been booked 61 times in all competitions since coming to England and picked up a further three red cards. He has served 18 matches in bans, including three for a headbutt on Stoke's Ryan Shawcross when he was at Everton that enraged David Moyes.
He is a menace in the worst possible sense. I don't use that term lightly but he is not a Manchester United player in any shape or form.
I was never convinced he would fit in at Old Trafford when he left Goodison Park and have never been given reason to change my mind. Yes, he's a good player with some qualities but he is absolutely not United standard.
Now, roughly 10 months later, we have a response.
After the question was put to him whether or not he lets the comments of pundits or members of the media bother him, Fellaini insisted that they do not before suggesting that Carragher should not throw stones, describing him as the 'champion of blah blah' and the 'world champion of breaking legs'.
If I am violent and aggressive, what was Carragher? He is the champion of blah-blah and the world champion of breaking legs. If you type his name into YouTube you’ll only see him tackling.
As funny as that sounds, Fellaini doesn't really have a leg to stand on. There is no question that he is an aggressive player, and has played his entire career on the line between acceptable and unacceptable, spilling over on numerous occasions, whereas Carragher, while known for being a tough defender, he never broke anybody's leg (although the challenge on Nani came close).
Also, rather than be the champion of 'blah blah', Carragher is widely regarded as the best pundit around right now, and that point is reinforced by taking Fellaini's suggestion of searching his name on YouTube, where the results are an overwhelming amount of examples of his excellent punditry.
Still, it was an interesting response from Fellaini, who showed some balls in making the comments after seeing what happened to Loris Karuis when he challenged the guild of footballers-turned-pundits, although Carragher doesn't appear to be too bothered by this one.
Just Man United legs! https://t.co/GI4LvljkwV
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) March 9, 2017
