Paul Pogba

In Rainbows said:

That is not what is happening. We're not needing a DM for Pogba. We need one because the team as a whole benefits. If we had a DM instead of Pogba, we would now be missing a creative midfielder and we could still be missing that passing maestro the team needs. Similarly if we were to move Pogba further forward in a midfield 3, we're now lacking someone who can bring the ball out to better supply all of our attacking players. It's not a case of catering to Pogba.

A lot of you guys frame it that way for whatever reason. Every manager buys players that fit their system or buys players that fit the rest of his lineup. Do you think we shouldn't do that? If we were to buy a RW would we be catering to AWB and Martial?

The latter part is something I agree with. I just don't see how it's catering to Pogba by bolstering our midfield.

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We need someone who can pick the pass from deep and playing Pogba is not the way to go as we need him to create chances and also at the end of these chances. Ideally we should have signed a good midfielder who could have picked passes from deep, but from the available players I think Fred is best suited for the role. He wasn't good last season but in the few games he showed what he is capable of. He is very mobile, wins possession well and also can pick passes.

Playing Lingard as a 10 is of no use, I think it's about time we shift to 4-3-3 by adding Fred and pushing Pogba higher up the pitch.

Pogue Mahone said:

Well if you ask me, needing to buy any specific player “to get the best out of” another player is a horrific waste of resources. You don’t see any other footballers who are as good as Pogba is supposed to be needing that sort of mollycoddling. Liverpool and City’s players keep performing consistently in all sorts of different XI’s. You didn’t see Messi and Ronaldo fall to pieces when they had to adapt to a completely different set-up behind them.

We should be attempting to sign (or promote) the best possible player in every position, not signing specific players we think Pogba needs to do his job properly. It’s an even more stupid idea given the possibility he might bugger off to another club at any given transfer window.

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But that's not really a thing, it's us fans who like to talk out of our backsides. When you want to improve your team, you look at the players that you already have and try to bring the missing pieces/ingerdients, it's not a consideration made for one or two players but the team as a whole. If you have Kanté in your team and lacks creativity, you don't say "to get the best out of Kanté I will bring a creative player" because that's an extremely stupid take.

roonster09 said:

We need someone who can pick the pass from deep and playing Pogba is not the way to go as we need him to create chances and also at the end of these chances. Ideally we should have signed a good midfielder who could have picked passes from deep, but from the available players I think Fred is best suited for the role. He wasn't good last season but in the few games he showed what he is capable of. He is very mobile, wins possession well and also can pick passes.

Playing Lingard as a 10 is of no use, I think it's about time we shift to 4-3-3 by adding Fred and pushing Pogba higher up the pitch.

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Agreed, it's our own fault that our midfield options are so dire but Pogba's our best box to box midfielder and attacking midfielder. We're struggling to create much so I'd move him forward and throw in Fred or Pereira in midfield. Let's face it they're not going to offer less there than Lingard offers in attack.

I believe Pogba is playing just fine, but can't do everything himself. All his teammates expect him to come up with the ideas, with the killer pass, with the creativity to unlock defences. As soon as he has an off-day, the whole team is hugely affected and he gets a lot of blame. While it is actually entirely normal that players have off-days as all players have that, also in the good teams. Except for those teams, they have multiple players with that world-class ability and they can rely on others to step up their game.

We currently do not have that, but I think Pogba is invaluable to us as the linking player. He has the vision and the passing range to link defence to attack and make us look like a cohesive unit. Upgrading the #10 position is key for us next summers, especially if we stick with the 4-2-3-1 system. For this season, I think it is worth a try to give Andreas a run of games at #10, as he is able to press high and energetic, while he can combine it with an end product, passing range and much needed creativity.

Another option would be to sacrifice Lingard and the #10 role and instead switch to a 4-3-3 and bring Fred in. Have McTominay sitting with Fred helping him out with the build-up and pressing and tackling. Pogba can then we pushed slightly more forward to use his creativity. In possession, Fred is more than capable to make quick passing in between the lines to break up low opposition blocks. I just think Lingard needs to be removed as soon as possible from that #10 role, as apart from pressing and movement off the ball, he offers close to nothing. I am confident that either Andreas or Fred can offer the same pressing and movement, while combining it with creativity, a good passing range and an end product to show for it.

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Pogba Junior saying that sooner or later, him and Paul will play together in Spain...Maybe even this season.
Younger bro has a pretty big mouth...unless Raiola is using him

roonster09 said:

I don't understand why people use this, Matic wasn't signed to get best out of Pogba, he was signed to help the team and improve the midfield. Same with Fred and any other player.

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You may not get it for reasons best known to you. But narrative at that time was that buying a proper DM would get the best out of Pogba as Herrera was not a natural DM. However, it only worked for few months. Typical short-term signing by Jose.

JPRouve said:

But that's not really a thing, it's us fans who like to talk out of our backsides. When you want to improve your team, you look at the players that you already have and try to bring the missing pieces/ingerdients, it's not a consideration made for one or two players but the team as a whole. If you have Kanté in your team and lacks creativity, you don't say "to get the best out of Kanté I will bring a creative player" because that's an extremely stupid take.

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EXACTLY. Well said.

you don't bring in Kante mk11 to play alongside kante because that would be extremely stupid also.

It's funny how stupid people can be when it suits their narrative

I'm getting a bit pissed off with not only how many times he loses possession, but the fact that when he does he just seems to face plant and stay there while everyone else is suddenly charging towards our goal.

FFS, how many other players of his size are dispossessed as often as he is ??

And then spend 10 <> 15 seconds eating grass instead of bouncing up as quickly as possible and trying to regain possession ??

Saturday, 93rd minute, was just an absolute classic example.

Genuine question(s) for the big fans Pogba - a) Do you think his performances are very good most of the time and b) if not and it’s down to team mates, tactics or whatever, do you think he is at all responsible and could be better if he looked at his own part in it?

izzydiggler said:

Genuine question(s) for the big fans Pogba - a) Do you think his performances are very good most of the time and b) if not and it’s down to team mates, tactics or whatever, do you think he is at all responsible and could be better if he looked at his own part in it?

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His performances sometimes are below average b) we are over reliant on him even if others don't see it. If we try to play him high up the pitch he ends coming deep to get the ball because no one else seems to be able to do so. When we play him deep we have the likes of Lingard running around doing feck all.

I don't accept the idea that we need midfielders to unlock Pogba more like we need a balanced midfield regardless of Pogba. We should have a dm who can pass from deep, we should have midfielders who can control the game for us. Instead we expect our other midfielders to carry the defensive workload and Pogba to shoulder the creativity workload.

izzydiggler said:

Genuine question(s) for the big fans Pogba - a) Do you think his performances are very good most of the time and b) if not and it’s down to team mates, tactics or whatever, do you think he is at all responsible and could be better if he looked at his own part in it?

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He has his problems but is part of the solution for what we want to be not the problem.

You need a serious agenda to pin the palace goal on Pogba....no ones pinning our equaliser on Zaha or giving Pogba credit for his part in that.

On the Palace goal Pogba does a good turn and is taking the ball forward looking for a pass he gets tackled from the blind side inside their half. It's then 6 on 4 in our favour. The absolute state of of the defending and goal keeping beyond that point. There's four players on Zaha ffs it's tragic. No worse than the first goal though.

But yeah let's blame the guy who was driving us forwards looking to help us win the game. Martial and Rashford lost the ball beating players many times. I think Maguire did at one point also carrying the ball looking for options.

You have to say no one can carry the ball. We just have to play square.

Pogba's performances so far this season....a little below par in terms of attacking play, a little subdued. His work rate and defensive contribution have been very good though as has his commitment.

DeGea though....again. He cost us top four last season almost single handedly.

izzydiggler said:

Genuine question(s) for the big fans Pogba - a) Do you think his performances are very good most of the time and b) if not and it’s down to team mates, tactics or whatever, do you think he is at all responsible and could be better if he looked at his own part in it?

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Obviously he is somewhat responsible for his own performances, but equally obviously he is being relied on to do far more than one player should be expected to do and that does come into play as well. If the responsibility to control the team around and create chances were shared with at least one other player of near his quality, I would expect him as an individual and the team as a whole to look much more fluent and natural.

MyOnlySolskjaer said:

Plays like he cares.

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Injured and limping at the end of the game but still tried to get into the box to score. However when he has a bad moment it is easy to just shout ''he doesnt care sell him''

Useless when played deep but was good when he actually played in a attacking position, maybe Ole will get it since Jose didn't.... 90 mil for a attacking player to only play him deep, only at united.

Should play as AM.

Slid Rashford in twice and you'd think if there was an Aguero or Kane (maybe even Martial in his form?) running onto them, we'd have scored.

Was really poor today but better further up the pitch...

Was much better in the 10. Was terrible in the middle. How many times did he lose possession or misplace a pass. Woefully bad in the middle.

Still expect another selfie this week of him smiling.

Absolute shocker. Guy was back to this crap mentality of " I wake up today not caring about playing football" We have seen loads of times.

Did a bit better in the second half, but a poor performance overall.

He was awful today. He’s only better forward cos he does less harm when he loses the ball. His strength and stamina are great but he can’t play with his head up. Takes too long on the ball. His lazy slow attitude is contagious

AJ10 said:

Useless when played deep but was good when he actually played in a attacking position, maybe Ole will get it since Jose didn't.... 90 mil for a attacking player to only play him deep, only at united.

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It's Pogba who needs to get it.

He dawdles on the ball and loses it far too often. Far too interested in showing his skills rather than becoming an efficient player.

He plays like a 18-19 year old Cristiano Ronaldo - good enough, but not enough killer instinct to be a great

Was way better further up the pitch. Looks like he can't be arsed further back. Which is sad and doesn't look good on Ole either if he can't get through on him.

Poor in the first half under pressure, much better in the 2nd.

I still think he’s best as a 10 closer to the goal, but we don’t have another midfield able to pass the killer ball either.

Was good in the 2nd half, first half kept making simple feck ups and was woeful. That's just who he is though. Thinks he is better than he is, always wants to go into a physical duel with a player and show the world he can dribble past someone or outmuscle them, yet so often loses it. Far from the issue though.

On a side note - needs to play as the 10 and get Fred in his #8 position.

Didn't give it away much in the second half, but instead, outside of one supreme turn didn't look up to much.

He's nowhere near world class

He can only play as an attacking midfielder which will mean we have to play Matic more often. He done well when pushed further forward

Absolute shocker first half. Was better in the second half though. Feel sorry for him that Rashford is the one he's sending through on goal instead of someone clinical.

Why don't we play him where Perreira was playing today? He can beat a man, he's more attacking than he is defensive, I'd rather he tries beating men in the final third then in our own half.

Only saw second half, was easily our best player...so much class in almost everything he did strength and power and looks fully committed.

So god knows how bad he was first half

AJ10 said:

Useless when played deep but was good when he actually played in a attacking position, maybe Ole will get it since Jose didn't.... 90 mil for a attacking player to only play him deep, only at united.

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We'll soon return to Pogba at 10 and Matic starting.

el3mel said:

Absolute shocker. Guy was back to this crap mentality of " I wake up today not caring about playing football" We have seen loads of times.

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That's too harsh. He was awful the last 15-20 min of the first half, but was good apart from that. I mean, I get it was shocking in those minutes, but that doesn't amount to a complete shocker.

He wasnt good the first 45 minutes but did you even see where he received some passes? I believe it was Mata who passed to him near our own box when Pogba was literally surrounded by 3 Southampton player. One behind him and two in front of him blocking all passing options... his teammates dont make it much easier for him.

Still plays like a 17 year old nearly a decade later.

Hopefully this game ends the experiment of trying to turn Paul Pogba into Paul Scholes. His performance in the deeper role was nowhere near good enough. Improved when given licence to go forward.

Godfather said:

Was way better further up the pitch. Looks like he can't be arsed further back. Which is sad and doesn't look good on Ole either if he can't get through on him.

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He's best further forward, everyone can see that but he needs to have a good DM behind. He's in the same situation, for example, as Mata when he's played RW - sure, he can do a job there but it's such a waste. Either Ole needs to trust McT as a DM or just play Matic and accept the fact he's immobile because this deep lying midfield two is farcical. Hasenhuttl is a very good manager in my opinion but he's having to make do with PL cast offs from bigger teams, it shouldn't be a contest and yet we were thoroughly outworked and out though today and even with 10 men they didn't really struggle.

It was a pretty typical performance from him. If you'd only watch his highlights he'd look great.