He's been either man-marked or boxed in for almost every game we've played this month. Matic has been much more cumbersome on the ball, Fernandes has been much less threatening on the ball so it's been much easier to prevent Pogba from picking up the ball and initiating plays from deep. On top of that we've run ourselves into the ground and Pogba is just one of those players, like Yaya Toure, that has a much lower base fitness level than you'd expect for a centre mid. We should hold him individually responsible for his failings but we can't overlook the tactical and team conditioning issues that are entirely outside his control.
Ole alluded to the exceptional circumstances that he felt necessitated going at this full throttle and running the team into the ground. After finishing third it's hard to argue. Individuals made personal sacrifices for the team, and they should be applauded for that rather than held accountable for its negative side effects.
Tactically it's easy to see that teams have packed the middle and cut off space for him. Every big team faces that to some degree but it's been particularly effective against us because our fullbacks are so clueless on the ball, particularly since Shaw's injury and AWB suffering more than most from fatigue. Rashford has had to initiate so many of our plays because we funnel the ball out wide so early. No doubt Pogba's failings feed into that but every midfielder struggles under those conditions.
For me, the jury's still out on whether Bruno's an elite #10. Assuming his inconsistency is mostly fitness related, then most of those issues should disappear next season. Teams can't pack the midfield when Bruno's so threatening in the hole, and if they want to double up on Pogba than a fit Matic is clearly capable of exploiting that with his passing. Ideally we'd have someone like Rice and Grealish stepping in at either end to do the same, but even without that we're in a good position to beat most teams most weeks, with Pogba playing a central role.