UNITED Fellaini thrives with Mourinho’s backing

JOSE Mourinho believes his recognition of Marouane Fellaini’s qualities has enabled the United midfielder to thrive at the club.

Fellaini nodded in his first United brace in the 4-0 Premier League win over Crystal Palace to double his goal tally for the campaign in his third successive league start.

The Belgian, who joined the club for £27.5m from Everton on deadline day in 2013, was applauded warmly by the Stretford End as he headed towards the tunnel at full-time, having previously been sarcastically cheered and booed by a section of the United support.

Mourinho telephoned Fellaini shortly after he was appointed United boss to reassure him he would not be sold and believes the 29-year-old’s ‘strong character’ has helped him overcome the difficulties he has faced at the club.

“I think only a strong character would resist the difficulties here,” Mourinho said of Fellaini. “Because he had some difficult times where people didn’t recognise his qualities where probably other managers didn’t like so much the qualities that he has, so you have to be a strong character.

“He’s a fighter, a guy with lots of pride, I’m really pleased I helped him to reach this and to change the perception the fans have now, I’m really happy for him.”

When asked what he had done to buoy Fellaini, Mourinho replied: “Just common sense, I guess. And we are all managers, we are all different, sometimes we like players others don’t like, sometimes we don’t like players others like, some players perform better with some of us than with others. And I have examples of players that didn’t perform well with me and then they performed well with other managers.

“Marouane is just the fact I think he has important qualities and I try to use these qualities depending of the situation, depending of the team’s needs. He played with me as defensive midfield player, as second striker, he played with me like today in one of the double midfield players, adapted to the needs of the team.”

United have scored four in six games already this season - as many as they managed last season - but Mourinho downplayed the significance of the stat.

“It’s just four matches at home,” Mourinho stressed. “I know in the same four matches last season we did eight points not 12, so in relation to the same matches we have four more points at home than last season.

“We are playing well, I don’t say well for 90 minutes because we had periods where we lose a bit of our consistency, what I call quality with intensity, but that’s difficult to do that for 90 minutes, it’s difficult to do that after a Champions League game.”