Why it should be Paulinho not Fellaini…
Going through the comments generated by the yesterday article today during my lunchtime, I found some responses quite interesting like those of @Desmondadonis and @3nity, when they let it be known their Fellaini preferences over Paulinho.
Well, to these my two pals I’d say that the taste of the pudding is in the eating. Otherwise, how do you hope to know the true value of a great athlete like Paulinho who’s never left South America, save for brief spells at Lithuanian side FC Vilnius and Polish side Lodzki KS, if you don’t get him out of there?
Don’t forget someone was responsible for giving the Ramires’, the Oscars, the Tevez’ not to mention the David Luiz’ and the Kakas of our game a chance to play in Europe! Of course Marouane Fellaini might be better, but I’m sure you’ll really understand my point of view if you took Juan Mata’s Valencia stats, or Michu’s Rayo Vallecano ones and juxtapose with their current Premiership ones. For Pete’s sake, the Corinthians ace might well turn out to be yet another world beater for us – just like the now-popular Javi Martinez is for Bayern! Don’t forget Javi, for instance, hardly made the La Roja squad while still at Athletic Bilbao let alone start a competitive match, and has only ever won just 9 Spanish caps in his career so far…but check also that FC Hollywood took the plunge anyway, even expensively at that! They took the chance and the rest, as they say, is history!
So my point in a nutshell is: different leagues pose different challenges, realities and possibilities to players and an average or obscure player may quite incredibly become a hit at a different league! No surprises really, it’s the nature of life itself. Of course, you know other telling examples abound, don’t you? Yeah, you know like a Thierry Henry’s Monaco/Juventus statistics compared to his meteoric accomplishments at Arsenal?? Plus, the Brazilian midfield ‘matador’ will come way cheaper(in the face of the looming FFP regime), and perhaps the World Club Cup and Copa Libertadores winner may potentially slot in more seamlessly with his fellow Portuguese-speaking mates here with us compared to the tall hairy Belgian who has never tasted international Cup success!
Thus, if I were to choose, I’d go with the much younger 24 year-old for some of these reasons, especially as the older Fellaini, 27, though fantastic going forward is crap defensively, often makes wild and rash challenges and lacks defensive and/or positional discipline(something folks like @Mq would customarily call a David Luiz 2.0 actually) compared to the tough-tackling, box-to-box midfield anchor and playmaker, José Paulo Bezerra Maciel Júnior aka Paulinho.
You’d agree, I’m sure, that those dubious traits and obvious flaws in the big Belgian’s game are those we all know Mourinho doesn’t tolerate in his players. Besides all these, isn’t the Everton ace United-bound?
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