I hope Fellaini never plays in the Premier League again – Carragher

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher hopes “repeat offender” Marouane Fellaini never makes another Premier League appearance. 

Fellaini was handed a three-match ban after an altercation with Leicester City defender Robert Huth, who also suffered the same punishment, keeping both players out for the rest of the 2015-16 league campaign.

Television replays showed Huth appearing to pull Fellaini’s hair before the Belgium international struck him with an elbow in Manchester United’s 1-1 draw with Leicester last Sunday. 

Carragher believes Fellaini deserved a much greater punishment, with the midfielder eligible for selection in United’s FA Cup final clash against Crystal Palace.

“How did they get the same bans? One man deliberately swings an elbow, knowing full well the damage that can be caused. The other grabs a clump of hair. Both, somehow, end up with three-match suspensions,” Carragher wrote in a column for the Daily Mail.

“The more I look at the punishments that Marouane Fellaini and Robert Huth received, the less I can understand the Football Association’s decision. Huth, a giant in Leicester’s fairytale campaign, misses his side’s big celebration for an incident you associate with a school playground.

“Yet Fellaini could end up playing in the FA Cup final. Can pulling someone’s hair cause the same damage as a flailing elbow? No. Not in a million years.

“It can’t be right that he will be available for Manchester United’s big day against Crystal Palace on May 21. My personal hope is that we would never see him playing in the Premier League again.

Carragher added: “He is a repeat offender and it has gone beyond the point now where people can attempt to defend him by saying he is a tall lad who is using his arms for leverage.

“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 head butt 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.”