Marouane Fellaini has less than four months left on his contract at Manchester United, having yet to put pen to paper over a new deal.
The 30-year-old arrived at Old Trafford in a £27.5 million deal from Everton in the summer of 2013 under the management of David Moyes.
Fellaini has since gone on to make 101 Premier League appearances for us over the past four-and-a-half seasons, though this campaign has been blighted by injuries. As a result the 6’4″ midfielder has been reduced to just 409 minutes of Premier League action this season, across three starts and a further nine substitute appearances.
Unfortunately, the Belgian international is sidelined following knee surgery and is not due back until April.
Today, Jose Mourinho gave an update on Marouane Fellaini’s contract situation. He told MUTV:
“Is he going to stay or leave? I don’t know. I don’t know. I want him to stay, the club wants him to stay. The process, the negotiations, the numbers, the distances between the offer and what he wants – I really don’t know how things are going.”
There have been strong rumours this year that Marouane Fellaini will depart us when his contract at the end of the season and join Turkish Super Lig side Besiktas, on a free transfer.
Should Fellaini leave, and with Michael Carrick retiring in the summer, we would be left with just four established central midfielders in the squad – Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic, Ander Herrera and Scott McTominay. What’s more – Jose Mourinho has frequently used a 4-3-3 formation since signing Alexis Sanchez in January.
The positive news for us is that should Marouane Fellaini leave, we’d be sure to sign at least one central midfielder over the summer, if not two. And we’ve been linked to a number of top players in this position this month alone, including Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos, Napoli’s Jorginho, Borussia Dortmund’s Julian Weigl and Nice’s Jean Seri, among others.
