Wasnt park playing as an AM in that game though, with a man-marking job.
Its not about trusting though, its about giving him a chance. Most of us were expecting a transitional period that season so would have been happy rebuilding instead. If we hadnt won anything that season and bedded in morrison and pogba, I would have been happy.
You can say he wasnt ready but then you have to believe that he had a sudden growth in the three months of summer. Either the coaches of Juventus are that good or he was ready and just needed a chance ala cleverley and gibson.
http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/paul...d/3866/saison/2011/verein/9251/wettbewerb/GBR
Thats vastly different from what I remembered so had to go look. As that site shows there were large gaps in which he didnt play at all. Played only twice in august and september, once in october and twice in December. You cant really expect a youngster to shine when playing that sporadically.
I do agree that Morrison out shown pogba at academy level though.
Not sure where that site gets it's stats from but that isn't true.
July - 6 games (Curzon, Shrewsbury, Fleetwood, Edinburgh, Ayr, Tranmere) Started in 4 and was HT sub in other two
August - 8 games (Morecambe, Marseilles, New York Cosmos, Llanelli, Bangor, Arsenal, New Mills, Swansea) started in 4, sub in 2, missed 2
September - 4 games (Bury, Fulham, Rochdale, Norwich) started 3 and missed 1
October - 5 games (Birmingham, Bolton, Blackburn, Altrincham (F), Birmingham) started 4 and sub in 1
November - 4 games (Everton, Walsall, Wigan, Bolton) started all 4
December - 3 games (Sunderland, Liverpool, Blackburn) started all 3
That's 30 reserve games before Xmas!
So, he didn't play in two pre-season friendlies…one of which clashed with the Marseilles first team game.
In September he missed the MSC tie with Bury because he was playing v Fulham two days later and the Bury game was a very young team.
In October, November and December he played every game.
In addition, he featured in 3 League Cup games and also played for the France Youth team
So any notion of not playing games is totally incorrect. In fact he played in more games than nearly any other player.
He was given just as many chances as anyone else…but between September and December something happened. Everyone talks about the Blackburn game as the turning point, but I believe something was up earlier than that. My notes of the games say that he had poor match against Everton on the 3rd of November and in the game v Wigan on the 17th November he had a absolute stinker and was substituted.
In the first two LC ties he came on when we were 3-0 up and did ok. Nothing spectacular, and he certainly wasn't running the game or influencing it in any way. In the last game against Crystal Palace, he got 65 mins on the pitch and had an average game. The United Review noted that he "did himself no harm with a solid if unspectacular show in central midfield". We lost 1-2 to a Championship side and Pogba in his three games against lower league opposition (when we were already winning 3-0 and therefore no pressure) did ok.
So in summary. In his three first team games he was solid. No more no less. At the same time for the reserves he was very inconsistent. What possible evidence do people have for suggesting he should have been the No. 1 choice in a tough Premiership game against Blackburn. Certainly Pogba's performances up until that point didn't suggest it.
Our offer was a good one…the playing time is all smokescreen in my opinion and the facts don't back it up.
Fergie certainly did make a mistake in playing Rafael, but I think Pogba had already made his mind up long before that game.
Hindsight is 20:20. The lad is a cracking prospect and I'm sure he will become even better. Good luck to him.
