Paul Pogba is not lazy

[JPRouve]

Pogba has an explosive play style, he’s the 1 that’s supposed to sprint forwards and join the attack. He’s the only sprinting with the ball to carry us up the pitch - that drains stamina.

His body type is clearly fast twitch and has very little fat which is build for speed and power, but his stamina is a little slow to recover.

When you’re gassed and needing to get your breathe back you’re way more likely to not track a run or switch off, it just happens.

He clearly isn’t lazy or doesn’t care, it’s a made up narrative by the press to harm the club.

What I would say is our style of football doesn’t help, having to run the length of the pitch repeatedly isn’t good, we need to box teams in more and play in a 30 metre zone, rather than 90. Hopefully ole can get us pressing better in pre season.

But you see I'm receptive to the idea that there is a mismatch between what he reliably provides and what we need. That's where I have an issue with many posters, instead of discussing tactics and ways to use or not use different players, they make sweeping statements that are just dumb. For me the question is simple is the team that we want to build compatible with Pogba's strength? If it isn't just sell him, simply because he isn't compatible. But we shouldn't make ridiculous narratives that are meant to turn a cold and professional decision into a moral one.

I think that Gerrard was a great player but I would never purchase him because I wouldn't know how to use him correctly in a team that is collectively good. You could make the same argument with Ibrahimovic, he was a great player individually but the way he plays football doesn't make it easy to create a very strong first eleven. That's the issue that I have had with Pogba for years with France and why I was for his exclusion on many occasions, now France got lucky and great players that were compatible with Pogba and Deschamps magically appeared but go find United's Matuidi, Kanté, Mbappé and Griezmann, it's not simply their levels but their respective characteristics that makes it work.

 

[devilish]

Ok, i get your view on the matter, and somewhat agree with you. (in the matter of bringing better players overall)

You could compare Pogba to Scholes in a matter of responsibility in making the team tick.
The raw reality is that their similarities start and end with their first name. They're both named Paul. It ends there.

You couldn't take the ball away from Scholesy, yet, you put a taller, bigger Pogba in the team and he gets disposessed like no other midfielder in the Premiership.

I am not comparing Scholes to Pogba. If I had to choose between the two it would be the former. I would choose Scholes over Zidane as well which gives you an idea of how much I rate the guy and honestly I think Scholes consistency (which is rare for a playmaker) is why fans can go tough against Pogba. My point is that even Paul Scholes needed quality players around him to do well and as said Pogba is no Paul Scholes.

 

[doriandun]

I wonder if Zidane,Deco,Riquelme and a few other midfielders from a few years back would have been called lazy if playing in this time.
Pogba is a easy target. Could he be better? Of course but his playing alongside absolute garbage. He isn’t the kind of player you build a team around,the sooner managers realise that the better.
People saying he wouldn’t get into the Liverpool midfield? You think any of their midfielders would get into the France World Cup midfield? It’s clear as day if/when he goes to another team, he’s going to be a World player of the year candidate.
He shouldn’t be wasting his prime years playing in a side like ours,creating chances for forwards like ours and covering for defending like ours.

The answer is no they would not be called lazy because they have the ability to manipulate time and space, which comes with football intelligence, and they are better decision makers, and tend to see the bigger picture and in most situations give themselves at least 2 or thee passing options. they are players who wouldn't tackle as much of the ball, but they would position themselves in the passing lanes of the opposition, to help the team.

Man city and Liverpool beat teams mainly by forcing teams to play the game in the opposition half, for a large portion of the match,
and they usually force the teams fullback into a mistake with their coordinated pressing which not only rushes the player on the ball, but also blocks the passing lanes.

An example is the game against Man city, where Pogba lost the ball on the touch line , in that instance when Pogba got the ball, he should of released it in one move to Andreas or back to Luke Shaw, Andreas being the key man here, would also provide a passing option for Shaw, Andreas could of been able to release the ball Fred, Fred then had three options, play it to Rashford, on the left touch line who had come to help Pogba, thus taking out three Man city players allowing Rashford to go one on one with the Man city's lelft back or alternatively Fred could of played it to the right back, thus allowing the right back to move the ball up the field as Sterling had tucked in, or alternatively Fred could of passed it to the guy who was on the centre circle.


To beat Liverpool and Man city's press, the idea is to, as a team take aleaf out of basketball, which alot of people fail to understand, that it's not about dribbling, but movement, always creating passing options for the person on the ball and the person on the ball releasing the ball quickly, with the aim that the next pass move the ball closer to the oppostions goal, with the least amount of passess, then utilize the same pressing and blocking passing lane methology city and Liverpool use.

The idea of having your keeper pass from the back again falls right into City and Liverpools's hand as they very quickly look to block your passing lane.

Lastily you need defenders who can defend one on one, and especially against Liverpool, who use crossess and centre backs who can clear crosses. Pogba is more of a David Beckham, than a Zidane, Deco or any of the Silva's at Man City.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

He's quite literally the least of our problems but, for some reason, we want him to be problem number one.

 

[Abizzz]

I hate to break it to you, but the number of sprints is the same stat as % of walking/juggling/sprinting, just presented in a different form. And I've literally gave you an example of the use of that statistics on Messi.

It is not. Some sprints are 5m, some are 10m, others are 20m. % Walking tells you next to nothing. Are sidesteps walking? Is backtracking jogging? There's a number of players who jog faster than Sanchez runs these days...


The fact you had to go to marca dissecting Messi is itself telling of how regularly this stat is used.

 

[Tomuś]

He's quite literally the least of our problems but, for some reason, we want him to be problem number one.

Think he's judged harshly because they are people (also on here) who say he's the best midfielder in the world or bollocks like that. Also his price-tagand stature in the game. Same goes for Lukaku (price) and the likes.

 

[Siorac]

He's quite literally the least of our problems but, for some reason, we want him to be problem number one.

It's because he doesn't win games single-handedly.

 

[ToToMarshall]

He’s basically our Mesut Özil at this point. It doesn’t matter what he does anymore, the agenda and the narrative already exists and then the facts are bent to fit it.

 

[Tomuś]

If Liverpool were to lose form with Salah underperforming people would target him, not Henderson or TTA.

 

[NinjaFletch]

Facts and agendas never fit together

Except in this case it's abundantly clear that the stats and 'agenda' (in this case I'm taking the word to mean 'being able to describe what you are seeing on the pitch with your eyes') do fit together. The only possible way you can use the stats to exonerate Pogba's work rate is by a partial read of them.

Let's get the evidence together in one place, shall we:

1. The stats in the OP are per game stats, not per 90 minute stats. Pogba mostly plays the full games, so this favours him over players who don't play the full games (the flip side is it looks worse for player like, say, Martial who is lazy but not that lazy)

As @Ajaxsuarez correctly points out:

If you take the total distance, divide by minutes, multiply by 90 you get Pogba 10.42km per 90 vs for example Henderson 11.65km, Herrera 11.71km, Eriksen 11.83km

To do some of the other ones, David Silva runs 11.3km per 90, De Bruyne ran 12.23 per 90 (perhaps helped by his small sample size), Ramsey comes out at 12.1km.

In fact, the only people I've additionally checked who are in Pogba's ballpark are

Ozil who ran 10.5 and Maddison who ran 10.62. I don't know what Leicester fans make of Maddison, but I do know Ozil is regularly criticised for not working hard enough.

2. He runs less than any player in our midfield, and runs less than players with similar builds

As Classical Mechanic demonstrated Pogba runs over a kilometre less than our other midfielders, and runs less than players of comparable build

The OP stats are misleading. I got the details as following for per 90 minutes

I get Bernardo Silva’s at 11.95km average per 90. Eriksen’s at 11.83km per 90 and Pogba’s at 10.42km per 90.

@In Rainbows

I had a brief look at the minutes thing.

Eriksen has actually played slightly more minutes this season across all comps, 4036 to 4012 and B Silva has played 3935.

Compared to the rest of our team

Herrera covered 11.7km per 90. Matic 11.5km. Fred 11.74. Mctominay 11.76.

There was the question of his build affecting him in comparison to smaller players but similar built players stats are:

Dacoure at Watford, another player of similar build, he covers 11.61km per game and has more minutes in the PL although less overall. Even compared to Eric Dier who is 6ft 2in and what I would consider as cumbersome he comes up short against 11.41km

Those players have played less minutes than him but last season Matic played more minutes than Pogba this season: 3119 and more overall 4156 but still covered 11.74km per game in the PL on average. I’m not sure there’s much drop of with more minutes overall.

Not exhaustive of course but I suspect that minutes played doesn’t affect distance covered profoundly and that Pogba is at the lower end of distance covered per 90 for a midfielder.

3. Pogba worked the least hard out of anyone in our Champions League campaign

Kilometres per 90 minutes:

McTominay: 11.9
Fred: 11.83
Fellaini: 11.64
Matic: 11.39
Pogba: 10.5

4. Pogba spends the most time walking in the league (or had in April)

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

64% walking. Oh dear.

Conclusions:

Pogba covers the least distance per 90 of any midfielder at the club. Pogba covers less distance than players with comparable builds, and players who are primarily tasked with being the creative outlets for their team. The only player I can find who has comparable numbers to Pogba are players also criticised for laziness. Pogba spends more time walking than any other midfielder in the Premier League.

If we add all that up I would say it is abundantly, perhaps irrefutably clear, that Pogba is not a hard working player. People criticise Pogba for being lazy because they are correctly identifying that he is not working as hard as his teammates.

With that in mind, the discussion for me should not be whether or not Pogba is lazy, but whether or not his work ethic can be accommodated, whether his positives outweigh his negatives, and whether a successful Premier League midfield '3' can accommodate a player like him in it.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

It's because he doesn't win games single-handedly.

That's exactly what he was doing during the first 10 or so games under Ole. Without Pogba, I have no doubt we'd have been fighting with the likes of West Ham, Palace and Newcastle for a place in the top half.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

"After the season he's had, just go in," said Shearer. "You cannot argue."

Pogba was United's top scorer this season with 16 goals and also registered 11 assists, but he failed to track back for one of Cardiff's goals on Sunday.

He has scored just twice - two penalties in a 2-1 win against West Ham in April - in United's past 15 games and his performances in recent months have been widely criticised.

Since beating Paris St-Germain 3-1 on 6 March, United have won just twice in 12 matches.

Against Cardiff, Pogba failed to track Josh Murphy, who ran onto a throw-in and then squared for Nathaniel Mendez-Laing's second goal of the match.

Speaking on Match of the Day about Pogba's lapse, Shearer said: "This is the problem at Old Trafford, it epitomises everything that is wrong with this football club and football team.

The delusion... Because there's nothing else wrong with our club. Pogba is the reason we've been an utter shambles for 6 years. Paul Pogba is also the reason we've won twice in twelve matches - our manager only takes responsibility for the wins, the losses are on Pogba and the scooby gang.

 

[doriandun]

But you see I'm receptive to the idea that there is a mismatch between what he reliably provides and what we need. That's where I have an issue with many posters, instead of discussing tactics and ways to use or not use different players, they make sweeping statements that are just dumb. For me the question is simple is the team that we want to build compatible with Pogba's strength? If it isn't just sell him, simply because he isn't compatible. But we shouldn't make ridiculous narratives that are meant to turn a cold and professional decision into a moral one.

I think that Gerrard was a great player but I would never purchase him because I wouldn't know how to use him correctly in a team that is collectively good. You could make the same argument with Ibrahimovic, he was a great player individually but the way he plays football doesn't make it easy to create a very strong first eleven. That's the issue that I have had with Pogba for years with France and why I was for his exclusion on many occasions, now France got lucky and great players that were compatible with Pogba and Deschamps magically appeared but go find United's Matuidi, Kanté, Mbappé and Griezmann, it's not simply their levels but their respective characteristics that makes it work.

Kante = Dacoure from Watford, Lorente at Real Madrid or Adrien Rabiot
Mbappe = Tammy Abraham or Luka Jovic
Griezmann = Grealish
Matuidi -?

 

[Classical Mechanic]

@NinjaFletch

I think Maddison's weakness is his stamina. He's often subbed off later in games.

 

[DickDastardly]

Conclusions:

Pogba covers the least distance per 90 of any midfielder at the club. Pogba covers less distance than players with comparable builds, and players who are primarily tasked with being the creative outlets for their team. The only player I can find who has comparable numbers to Pogba are players also criticised for laziness. Pogba spends more time walking than any other midfielder in the Premier League.

If we add all that up I would say it is abundantly, perhaps irrefutably clear, that Pogba is not a hard working player. People criticise Pogba for being lazy because they are correctly identifying that he is not working as hard as his teammates.

With that in mind, the discussion for me should not be whether or not Pogba is lazy, but whether or not his work ethic can be accommodated, whether his positives outweigh his negatives, and whether a successful Premier League midfield '3' can accommodate a player like him in it.

Exactly.

For all those who love stats, muster in that he is the 7th most dispossessed player in the PL (2.5 per game), and second in our team behind Rashford in bad ball control per game (2.1), his pass success is 82,8 which is 87th in the PL, and you get someone who:

Runs the least in our team.
Gets dispossessed the most in our team.
Has a bad ball control only Marcus Rashford beats in our team.
And his pass success is in the ranks of James Tomkins.
Yes, he scored 13 goals. 7 of them were Penalties.

P.S. I would love to continue this conversation, but my 3 post per day are done.

(yes i agree, but Pogba doesn't get dispossessed because of adventurous passes, he gets dispossessed because he thinks no one will try to take the ball away from him)

P.P.S.

And regarding 2017/18 season, it was actually Sane, then Sterling, then Aguero and then KDB with 1.6 per game.

 

[harms]

It is not. Some sprints are 5m, some are 10m, others are 20m. % Walking tells you next to nothing. Are sidesteps walking? Is backtracking jogging? There's a number of players who jog faster than Sanchez runs these days...


The fact you had to go to marca dissecting Messi is itself telling of how regularly this stat is used.

It was literally the first link in google. As you can see, Sky has the numbers for all PL midfielders and Pogba is literally the one who spends the most time in walking pace. Walking/sprinting is about speed, not about the technique.

I’m genuinely surprised that people are arguing that it’s not true. Pogba has a lot of attributes, but his unwillingness to track back is his most visible weakness. We know how fast he can be, but he casually jogs back allowing pretty much every attacker to outpace him when he’s facing his own goal.

 

[harms]

Exactly.

For all those who love stats, muster in that he is the 7th most dispossessed player in the PL (2.5 per game), and second in our team behind Rashford in bad ball control per game (2.1), his pass success is 82,8 which is 87th in the PL, and you get someone who:

Runs the least in our team.
Gets dispossessed the most in our team.
Has a bad ball control only Marcus Rashford beats in our team.
And his pass success is in the ranks of James Tomkins.
Yes, he scored 13 goals. 7 of them were Penalties.

Now those are the stats that are pointless without context. De Bruyne last season lost the most balls in City team - because he attempt more adventurous passes and sees the ball more than any attacker. Same is true for Pogba. Look how many times even Messi gets dispossessed.

 

[AgentP]

He's the least of our problems. I would sell him only if he wants to leave. I'll throw out everyone else before Pogba.

 

[JPRouve]

It was literally the first link in google. As you can see, Sky has the numbers for all PL midfielders and Pogba is literally the one who spends the most time in walking pace. Walking/sprinting is about speed, not about the technique.

I’m genuinely surprised that people are arguing that it’s not true. Pogba has a lot of attributes, but his unwillingness to track back is his most visible weakness. We know how fast he can be, but he casually jogs back allowing pretty much every attacker to outpace him when he’s facing his own goal.

The one thing that bothers me with this stat is the fact that we don't have the figures for first or even the average for that group of players. For all I know the top player could be at 63% or he could be at 50% and it would lead to two totally different reading of the stats.

 

[NinjaFletch]

Exactly.

For all those who love stats, muster in that he is the 7th most dispossessed player in the PL (2.5 per game), and second in our team behind Rashford in bad ball control per game (2.1), his pass success is 82,8 which is 87th in the PL, and you get someone who:

Runs the least in our team.
Gets dispossessed the most in our team.
Has a bad ball control only Marcus Rashford beats in our team.
And his pass success is in the ranks of James Tomkins.
Yes, he scored 13 goals. 7 of them were Penalties.

P.S. I would love to continue this conversation, but my 3 post per day are done.

(yes i agree, but Pogba doesn't get dispossessed because of adventurous passes, he gets dispossessed because he thinks no one will try to take the ball away from him)

The rest are not really stats that are problematic in my opinion (other than the goal stat), he often gets the ball under pressure, is visibly the most adventurous passer in the side and almost certainly tries the most take ons. In context and with the 'eye test' they all seem relatively explicable, but the idea he is a hard working player (as some would have it) is not.

 

[DanClancy]

He's quite literally the least of our problems but, for some reason, we want him to be problem number one.

Is he though? He's our most high profile player so naturally a lot of players will look up to him and if his attitude isn't spot on its obvious the problems that will create.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Individual quality is generally (much) less important than overall quality/functionality. This point seems lost on many, however. Stating the obvious, that Pogba is our only (outfield) player with extreme individual qualities, is irrelevant.

Juve and France were/are not "built around" Pogba in the sense normally implied.

If "build around Pogba" means surrounding him with top quality, we're golden (well, provided we can actually do that). As part of an overall functional (at a high level) setup he's obviously more of an asset than a problem.

On the other hand, if "build around" means trying to make him the centre piece, the one player things flows through, I fear we're in trouble.

I didn't like Ole's comment about wanting to move Pogba further back - so that he might influence/control the game to a greater extent - one bit. I don't think that maximizes his potential at all.

 

[roonster09]

Exactly.

For all those who love stats, muster in that he is the 7th most dispossessed player in the PL (2.5 per game), and second in our team behind Rashford in bad ball control per game (2.1), his pass success is 82,8 which is 87th in the PL, and you get someone who:

Runs the least in our team.
Gets dispossessed the most in our team.
Has a bad ball control only Marcus Rashford beats in our team.
And his pass success is in the ranks of James Tomkins.
Yes, he scored 13 goals. 7 of them were Penalties.

P.S. I would love to continue this conversation, but my 3 post per day are done.

(yes i agree, but Pogba doesn't get dispossessed because of adventurous passes, he gets dispossessed because he thinks no one will try to take the ball away from him)

P.P.S.

And regarding 2017/18 season, it was actually Sane, then Sterling, then Aguero and then KDB with 1.6 per game.

KdB was the most dispossessed player last season and he averages 1.7 bad control per game (IIRC Messi have more unsuccessful touches per game than Messi), he has pass success rate of 83%. Shame if only City realized what a poor player he was and sold him.

Using some out of context shit stats like dispossessed, pass percentage means nothing. They are dispossessed more as they try to take on their man and create a goal scoring chance.

 

[kouroux]

Except in this case it's abundantly clear that the stats and 'agenda' (in this case I'm taking the word to mean 'being able to describe what you are seeing on the pitch with your eyes') do fit together. The only possible way you can use the stats to exonerate Pogba's work rate is by a partial read of them.

Let's get the evidence together in one place, shall we:

1. The stats in the OP are per game stats, not per 90 minute stats. Pogba mostly plays the full games, so this favours him over players who don't play the full games (the flip side is it looks worse for player like, say, Martial who is lazy but not that lazy)

As @Ajaxsuarez correctly points out:



To do some of the other ones, David Silva runs 11.3km per 90, De Bruyne ran 12.23 per 90 (perhaps helped by his small sample size), Ramsey comes out at 12.1km.

In fact, the only people I've additionally checked who are in Pogba's ballpark are

Ozil who ran 10.5 and Maddison who ran 10.62. I don't know what Leicester fans make of Maddison, but I do know Ozil is regularly criticised for not working hard enough.

2. He runs less than any player in our midfield, and runs less than players with similar builds

As Classical Mechanic demonstrated Pogba runs over a kilometre less than our other midfielders, and runs less than players of comparable build




3. Pogba worked the least hard out of anyone in our Champions League campaign



4. Pogba spends the most time walking in the league (or had in April)



Conclusions:

Pogba covers the least distance per 90 of any midfielder at the club. Pogba covers less distance than players with comparable builds, and players who are primarily tasked with being the creative outlets for their team. The only player I can find who has comparable numbers to Pogba are players also criticised for laziness. Pogba spends more time walking than any other midfielder in the Premier League.

If we add all that up I would say it is abundantly, perhaps irrefutably clear, that Pogba is not a hard working player. People criticise Pogba for being lazy because they are correctly identifying that he is not working as hard as his teammates.

With that in mind, the discussion for me should not be whether or not Pogba is lazy, but whether or not his work ethic can be accommodated, whether his positives outweigh his negatives, and whether a successful Premier League midfield '3' can accommodate a player like him in it.

You made a big post for something I said half arsedly

 

[reddev3]

Me personally, I think he just feels less motivated because of the the absolute dross around him, kind of like a why should I work hard only to have some one else mess it up for me attitude. Is this a good attitude? no its not but at the end of the day the other players are really crap so I would still rather keep him and change them.

When Ole came in we were brilliant for a while mainly because he was brilliant. We have also been terrible for a while because he has been terrible, we really shouldn't be good or bad depending solely on his form. Forget all these formations and transfers about "setting him free" just upgrade the quality around him and we will all be better off.

 

[Devils11]

Matt le Tissier is the laziest midfield I ever seen. He never track back and he doesn't even run when he dribble past players. But his talents shines in a team of dross... Now that is world class.

 

[RedIan]

Not read the whole thread but surely those stats are pointless. Comparing a player who is ever present in the team to those who only played limited games.

He is not lazy when it suits him. Look at his actions just before Cardiff’s 2nd goal. That was lazy cant be arsed mode.

 

[Righteous Steps]

Now those are the stats that are pointless without context. De Bruyne last season lost the most balls in City team - because he attempt more adventurous passes and sees the ball more than any attacker. Same is true for Pogba. Look how many times even Messi gets dispossessed.

It’s pointless comparing him to Messi or Hazard though, these are attackers who are exonerated because of their output and unique skill, Pogba being the only midfielder in the top 10 is a quite clear problem, he needs to hold and protect the ball better.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Individual quality is generally (much) less important than overall quality/functionality. This point seems lost on many, however. Stating the obvious, that Pogba is our only (outfield) player with extreme individual qualities, is irrelevant.

Juve and France were/are not "built around" Pogba in the sense normally implied.

If "build around Pogba" means surrounding him with top quality, we're golden (well, provided we can actually do that). As part of an overall functional (at a high level) setup he's obviously more of an asset than a problem.

On the other hand, if "build around" means trying to make him the centre piece, the one player things flows through, I fear we're in trouble.

I didn't like Ole's comment about wanting to move Pogba further back - so that he might influence/control the game to a greater extent - one bit. I don't think that maximizes his potential at all.

Agree. He needs to be right up top as a pure attacking midfielder in my opinion. With two hard working midfielders behind him.

I don't think Pogba is very good at controlling games either.

 

[NinjaFletch]

You made a big post for something I said half arsedly

I made a big post for everyone. You were just a useful straw man to jump off from.

 

[Buster15]

Agree. He needs to be right up top as a pure attacking midfielder in my opinion. With two hard working midfielders behind him.

I don't think Pogba is very good at controlling games either.

My biggest moan about him is the when he looses possesion he does not work anything like hard enough to win it back.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Except in this case it's abundantly clear that the stats and 'agenda' (in this case I'm taking the word to mean 'being able to describe what you are seeing on the pitch with your eyes') do fit together. The only possible way you can use the stats to exonerate Pogba's work rate is by a partial read of them.

Let's get the evidence together in one place, shall we:

1. The stats in the OP are per game stats, not per 90 minute stats. Pogba mostly plays the full games, so this favours him over players who don't play the full games (the flip side is it looks worse for player like, say, Martial who is lazy but not that lazy)

As @Ajaxsuarez correctly points out:



To do some of the other ones, David Silva runs 11.3km per 90, De Bruyne ran 12.23 per 90 (perhaps helped by his small sample size), Ramsey comes out at 12.1km.

In fact, the only people I've additionally checked who are in Pogba's ballpark are

Ozil who ran 10.5 and Maddison who ran 10.62. I don't know what Leicester fans make of Maddison, but I do know Ozil is regularly criticised for not working hard enough.

2. He runs less than any player in our midfield, and runs less than players with similar builds

As Classical Mechanic demonstrated Pogba runs over a kilometre less than our other midfielders, and runs less than players of comparable build




3. Pogba worked the least hard out of anyone in our Champions League campaign



4. Pogba spends the most time walking in the league (or had in April)



Conclusions:

Pogba covers the least distance per 90 of any midfielder at the club. Pogba covers less distance than players with comparable builds, and players who are primarily tasked with being the creative outlets for their team. The only player I can find who has comparable numbers to Pogba are players also criticised for laziness. Pogba spends more time walking than any other midfielder in the Premier League.

If we add all that up I would say it is abundantly, perhaps irrefutably clear, that Pogba is not a hard working player. People criticise Pogba for being lazy because they are correctly identifying that he is not working as hard as his teammates.

With that in mind, the discussion for me should not be whether or not Pogba is lazy, but whether or not his work ethic can be accommodated, whether his positives outweigh his negatives, and whether a successful Premier League midfield '3' can accommodate a player like him in it.

*applause*

 

[JPRouve]

I personally appreciated this analysis because it exposes his flaws but also his qualities and the context in which he finds success.

Here you have the conclusion if you don't want to read the all thing.

So, most of his top performances have been on the left of a 4-3-3, when he's typically covered less distance and concentrated on his talents: vision, winning duels, distribution, counter-attack threat and scoring goals.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

I personally appreciated this analysis because it exposes his flaws but also his qualities and the context in which he finds success.

Here you have the conclusion if you don't want to read the all things.

I agree with the conclusion 100%. Bizarrely Ole wants him to hold which I don't think he's that good at apart from the odd brilliant long pass.

 

[JPRouve]

I agree with the conclusion 100%. Bizarrely Ole wants him to hold which I don't think he's that good at apart from the odd brilliant long pass.

Yeah, that's a worrying idea. He is distinctly average when it comes to defensive anticipation, positioning and rhythm management. If Ole managed to teach Pogba those things, he would be a managing genius.

 

[Mal donaghy]

"After the season he's had, just go in," said Shearer. "You cannot argue."

Pogba was United's top scorer this season with 16 goals and also registered 11 assists, but he failed to track back for one of Cardiff's goals on Sunday.

He has scored just twice - two penalties in a 2-1 win against West Ham in April - in United's past 15 games and his performances in recent months have been widely criticised.

Since beating Paris St-Germain 3-1 on 6 March, United have won just twice in 12 matches.

Against Cardiff, Pogba failed to track Josh Murphy, who ran onto a throw-in and then squared for Nathaniel Mendez-Laing's second goal of the match.

Speaking on Match of the Day about Pogba's lapse, Shearer said: "This is the problem at Old Trafford, it epitomises everything that is wrong with this football club and football team.

The delusion... Because there's nothing else wrong with our club. Pogba is the reason we've been an utter shambles for 6 years. Paul Pogba is also the reason we've won twice in twelve matches - our manager only takes responsibility for the wins, the losses are on Pogba and the scooby gang.

PAUL!!!!!! Is that you??????

 

[NinjaFletch]

I agree with the conclusion 100%. Bizarrely Ole wants him to hold which I don't think he's that good at apart from the odd brilliant long pass.

Well in fairness, if Ole did want to sell him I'm not sure he'd be particularly smart to go around advertising that fact! Personally, I think we're in one of those odd scenarios where selling is probably best for all parties, but that does somewhat require being able to fleece a side for £100m+ to rebuild the midfield without him.

 

[Florida Man]

There’s a more important stat and that is the number two. As in, my two fecking eyes watching this guy literally not track his man and then walk and then stand still as Cardiff hustle to get the second goal.
Skip to 8:04

 

[roonster09]

I agree with the conclusion 100%. Bizarrely Ole wants him to hold which I don't think he's that good at apart from the odd brilliant long pass.

Yeah, that's a worrying idea. He is distinctly average when it comes to defensive anticipation, positioning and rhythm management. If Ole managed to teach Pogba those things, he would be a managing genius.

IIRC Solskjaer said he wants Pogba deeper as we didn't have control on the games, so he wanted to play him deeper. I think injuries to Matic and Herrera forced his hand too. When we had both Matic and Herrera it was working well. Both provided defensive stability and Pogba was very good higher up the pitch. Then with injuries (I think from Liverpool game) he was dropped deeper every game and ended as deepest midfielder.

Hopefully this was just a experiment and we won't go back to this. Pogba is at his best at higher up the pitch, we need better midfielders to control the game and spread the play from deep.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I personally appreciated this analysis because it exposes his flaws but also his qualities and the context in which he finds success.

Here you have the conclusion if you don't want to read the all thing.

That's interesting but also kind of useless. They're trying to do the impossible. Look for patterns of performance from a player who is wildly inconsistent. You don't need stats or detailed analysis of heat maps to know that it's almost impossible to predict which Paul Pogba will turn up.

I mean, look at this shit:

The difference here cannot be put down to tactical tweaks to try and get the best of a talented footballer.

We're looking at the outputs from someone who - in one of the two games being analysed - simply could not be arsed. Which could not have been more obvious at the time to anyone who watched his "performance" against Newcastle. And that's why all the agonising about how to get the best of him kind of misses the point. It's all a bit pointless if the player himself can't or won't give 100% in every match he plays in.