And Pogba's inconsistent game is a huge reason why we kept fluctuating between good and crap. His agent and brother talking crap when he's injured didn't help the mood at the club.
Pogba wants to be treated like the main star, paid like the main man but his game shines only when he has someone else picking up the responsibility and take the heat off him.
Objection: speculation.
It is fair to think that Pogba is culpable for us being where we have been, but at the end of the day, that view doesn’t really matter. What matters is how the player feels. If he feels he can be in a better situation, and can back that up by having clubs in better situations wanting to sign him, then that’s all that really matters. Ozil could say that he’d rather be competing for titles and he is better than the Arsenal situation, but what will determine whether he is better than it or not are his options. And as far as I can see - Arsenal is as good as he can get. Pogba could be at Real or Juve. Whether you think he is good enough or deserves to be there doesn’t really matter after that.
And some people are so sensitive too. I’ve been watching football for over two decades and agents, fathers making open-minded comments in the press about their man’s future is part and parcel of the game. And in my observation, more often than not the players don’t go anywhere anyway. When you have superstars, that comes with the territory, and people going on for months that a player‘s brother ‘can see him playing in Spain’ probably need to get with the program a bit. I’m not saying you would not rather such comments not made, but I do think the fallout from them is largely because of a pre-existing distaste towards the player in the first place. Mané has mates and agents speaking ambiguously about Real Madrid from time to time. I doubt the Liverpool fans have that much of a problem with it. It’s just football world chatter. To me, anyway. The way I see it, if a player is going to go, they will go, and if not, so long as they do their job best they can while they are hear, forget the rest. But I’m not really one to be too concerned with agents, brothers, Instagrams etc.