This is also a very good point. Our midfield simply doesn’t work for me. Fred and McTominay are clearly inferior players to Matic and Pogba - but it was at least a midfield pairing that worked. Currently, I’m conflicted between almost having a preference for Fred and Scott over Pogba and Matic. We obviously lose something, but then we gain other things.
I still feel that Bruno wasn’t the midfielder we should have gone for in January, unless Pogba was to be sold (or Bruno was to come in in the role VDB has now as back up). We had a working system with Fred, Matic/Scott and Lingard or Pereira in front of them. We had Pogba out injured as a primary creative midfielder. I think, and most of the talk on here at the time was that we couldn’t wait for Pogba to come back and remove Lingard/Pereira from the team. I don’t think anyone wanted him to come back to replace what we had built in Fred/Scott. That said, there was also an acknowledgement that Fred/Scott wasn’t the highest quality. I always thought the midfielder we would target would be one that allows us to keep what we had gotten from that duo, while improving the quality of it significantly. I wanted a player like Tonali or Barella for example, who could play in to double pivot with Pogba in front. Of course, if PP was to leave, then he’d need to be replaced too, but we still needed a better deep midfielder. Pogba cannot do that role well enough, especially not alongside Matic, and defensively, we are highly susceptible. Yeah, he gives us better passing (usually, not lately!), but there are also specialist deep midfielders who are good on the ball. Camavinga would have been a phenomenal signing for example, like a far better version of Fred.
Pogba doesn’t know how to defend well enough for me, and I doubt he ever will. It isn’t even a lack of effort or attitude, it is an actual lack of ability to do it well. He is a persistent fouler because he doesn’t know how to tackle well, and whenever an opponent tries to run away from him, I am confident he won’t just let them go, but I’m also certain he will climb all over them and haul them to the ground! He also isn’t built for the press. His physical profile doesn’t suit it. He makes big strides, but not shorter shuttle runs, which are needed to avoid being passed around.