The kits are not alright…

Been a strange week or so for kits. Liverpool did brilliantly to set a new club record and score seven at NK Maribor, but they did it playing in all-orange. You half expected to see Johan Cruyff bamboozling a Maribor full-back. Man United held out for a dire 0-0 draw at Anfield while wearing grey, the very same-coloured kit that once caused Sir Alex Ferguson to make his players change their kit at half-time, supposedly because they couldn't see each other in grey at Southampton.Then there was Scotland failing to qualify for the World Cup while wearing luminescent pink. I'm all for breaking down gender stereotypes, but even so, it still reminded me of the garish pink of my daughters' My Little Pony toys. At least purple might have had Scottish heather associations. In fact it wasn't so long ago that West Ham had an all-purple away kit, which was very Essex. While Manchester City used to wear a luminous green cycle courier away kit and recently won at Chelsea wearing claret and blue. Call me old-fashioned, but shouldn't away kits have something to do with a club's traditional colours?

Redemption of Fellaini, the man who is more than just hair and elbows

It's hard not to feel pleased for the much-derided Marouane Fellaini, who has just scored twice for Manchester United against Crystal Palace. When he was signed by David Moyes he came to signify all that was wrong with post-Sir Alex Ferguson Man United. Fellaini was a big lumbering lump, not mobile, slow, all elbows. He arrived in the same season as Juan Mata, and the Guardian's Barney Ronay describers the little and large Moyes signings as looking like, "an odd couple, man-child double act in a John Steinbeck novella." 

Yet if you take a look at what Fellaini has won in his United career it's just about everything. He won an FA Cup with Louis Van Gaal and last season added a League Cup and Europa League to his trophy haul. That's three more trophies than, say, Harry Kane and Deli Alli have won while Alexis Sanchez has only an FA Cup. He's also human, and one of the first things Jose Mourinho did at United was to say that Fellaini was part of his plans. Perhaps he just needed to feel the love after the Moyes disaster. 

This season the 29-year-old Fellaini could quite conceivably add a league title to his trophy haul. So he can't really be that bad a player. United rarely lose when he plays, and Mourinho knows when to use a big man who scores goals and can play in a variety of positions. All those adaptation of Leonard Cohen saying, "So long Marouane," have proved a little premature.