Marouane Fellaini has been under some severe criticism in the last few weeks for his use of his elbows. There was one off the ball shot on Emre Can in the first leg of United's Europa League loss to Liverpool. Then came the controversy in the second leg that saw former World Cup final referee Howard Webb brand him a thug.
Fellaini was interviewed on BBC's Football Focus to defend himself and had this to say:
I don't want to elbow someone, I just defend myself. I'm physical, I like to win my challenge. That's English football as well. I'm not a dirty player.
It's very hard to take that seriously. As someone who was constantly giving away free-kicks in my underage soccer career for putting my elbows up for headers, to see a professional footballer using the excuse of "defending himself" for incidents like the one on Emre Can seems bizarre.
Fellaini doesn't linger too long on the subject of Howard Webb's jibe, but you can see a clip from the show here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVrS156EQn4
