Is Pogba as good as gone?

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Love this argument, so because a lot of people have had enough of one player and the circus around him we deserve obscurity and failure

I’m fed up and have had enough of knowing that Pogba wants to leave, because of course he wants to leave. We’re a 5th-6th club mate, you know that right?
And now we appear to green-lighted a 3 year rebuild of British and youth, in the hands of a guy who was managing Molde before us.
Everton have hired multi CL winning Ancelotti for their next phase.
I’m fed up that we can’t keep players like Pogba happy and that the future of attracting players like Sancho without the lure of a top manager or playing with the likes of Pogba looks very bleak indeed.

Keane had no problem slagging off every man and his dog when United were in bad shape and it got him the sack, he was right though. And there aint a chance if Roy Keane was here today in his peak he wouldn’t be causing a shit storm and be desperate to leave, that’s what happens when top players are stuck at clubs going nowhere.

 

[Mainoldo]

I watched Robson play in some pretty dreadful United teams. Far worse than what we see before us today. He dragged those sides along kicking and screaming. Pogba will never be that player and we wont ever see him leading our team - accept it. He is immensely talented but he is not worthy of being called a leader just because he demonstrated some leadership traits on a couple of occasions. I'll be pleased to see the back of him and his entourage - let some other club deal with it.

Did he get injured? Did he turn up every week? Did he get criticised for not helping us win the league? Did he get criticised when others around him wasn’t pulling there weight. Did he get criticised for drinking alcohol?

 

[Mainoldo]

The problem with supporters like you is that you are all too ready to believe anything negative you hear about the club. Medical team are a joke, the board and the manager clueless, the whole club is a joke. Some self-serving agent comes out with some negatives and you drink it up. Its one thing being critical about certain things, but its quite another to go out and seek the negatives and accept them unquestionably like you appear to do. There are too many of you on this forum nowadays.

Funny thought because anything negative about Pogba you believe. But okay.

Also I don’t believe everything negative about the club but feel free to prove otherwise... But like your opinion on Pogba I wouldn’t be surprised if you jump the gun a lot.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Temporarily but in the end the relationship broke down and would have been part of the reason Jose had to go.

Was that Pogba’s fault?

Jose falls out big with people at almost every single club he’s managed so I’m willing to lay most of the blame at the man with shitloads of previous.

 

[red4ever 79]

He's faking it according to many on here.

I dont think he is faking it. Whether or not he wants to be here is another matter, which is being sucked into this argument I think. I dont think we will see him for at least 6 weeks, so maybe he will be back by March, but fully expect him to leave in the summer.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

Did he get injured? Did he turn up every week? Did he get criticised for not helping us win the league? Did he get criticised when others around him wasn’t pulling there weight. Did he get criticised for drinking alcohol?

Now throwing a legend under the bus for the sake of Pogba

 

[Mainoldo]

Now throwing a legend under the bus for the sake of Pogba

I asked a question. That’s all.

If Pogba was British and played in that 80’s team he’d be a legend right now too.

 

[Canagel]

Nar.... plenty of players departed Arsenal every year for the same reason. RVP, Sanchez, hell even Henry.

Pogba was promised one thing and the current reality is something quite different, just as in every walk of life, he has every right to be fuming with the state of the club and wasting his Prime years finishing 5th-6th in the Premier League.

And when RVP left Arsenal they were still getting CL every season unlike us now.
The current iteration of Manchester United ( the English AC Milan) is a shambles and to think we can keep big players without challenging for anything just because of our name is very naive.

Raiola is right, Pogba needs a ambitious club like Juventus first season.

 

[JPRouve]

He’s in a position to step up and act like a senior player. If he’s actually been injured all this time then so be it but I've found it incredibly difficult to continue making excuses for him recently.

Two things, acting like a senior player has never made a team good and you don't have to make excuses, you can simply look at things rationally, which begins with not giving life to speculations about injuries because we seldomly do that for any one else, personally I can't remember an other example where people make that type of theories and as we discussed a few days ago, there is a lot of players with bad injury records.
Now, the most important point for me is the following hypothetical. If a player wants to leave, he can leave there are many good reasons for it such as money, glory or personal life decisions, they are all fine for me because football players aren't objects and football clubs make the same type of decisions, they declare players unwanted for money, football or personal reasons all the time and I have no reason to consider one acceptable and not the other. What matters is that down the line both sides find an agreement that suits everyone.
The other remark that I would make is that when a club does what we have done in the last 7 years, when it does everything wrong at boardroom level, when the club fails to strengthen the team year after year, when no one, fans included have faith in any sort of short term recovery you end up like Arsenal, where every decent player will question their long term presence in the club, at Arsenal they all left and no one came to replace them. It wasn't Van Persie's fault that Arsenal were shoddy and no one blames him for eventually leaving them for an historic rival.

That's the problem that I have with this fanbase at the moment, there is a sort of double personality where everyone knows that we are a mess that we only have few good players, that aren't even great or numerous enough to make a consistent first eleven but for some reason, we keep alternating our blames between them. One week it's Rashford, the other week it's Martial, the other week it's Maguire and all weeks it's Pogba. The reality is that the club is a mess we are no better than Tottenham in the 2000s or Arsenal today.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

I asked a question. That’s all.

If Pogba was British and played in that 80’s team he’d be a legend right now too.

Are we are back to xenophobia now in a team full of nationalities

 

[JPRouve]

OK, if you believe that he has been injured this long. I think he probably has a slight injury that he could play through. I believe he could have come back a heck of a lot quicker than he did. I don't believe he has been putting everything into his efforts to get fit again - might be wrong, but wasn't there footage of him playing basketball while he had this 4 month ankle injury? Over in the US? Might be wrong on that!

I think he has now, along with his people, decided that it's time to get the injury looked at, get it cleaned up so that he can be fresh and ready for the Euros. I find it disappointing.

This is all my opinion. But, just like on the field where I don't see much effort, I don't feel there's been much effort to get himself back to help the cause at United.

But how can you make that claim? Honestly it's shocking, you don't know how painful or uncomfortable it may be but you make that claim, you don't know what the long term consequences of playing through it are. You realize how daft that is, would you make that claim for anyone else without experiencing the same thing or even knowing precisely where the problem is?

 

[Majima]

The club has invested very seriously. There's not many clubs in the world who have spent more than us since Fergie left. The outgoings have been huge. They've just been largely very poor signings with no plan. This is why I'm not a fan of Ole being sacked just yet. Even though I don't think he's up to the job nothing will change at this club until Ed is fired and hopefully the Yanks clear off.

The club has not "invested very seriously" since Mourinho's first summer. That was 3 years ago. Since then we have avg. a net spend of £70m. Do you think that is a reasonable outlay for a serious rebuild with a club with our resources?

Our midfield options last season were Herrera, Pogba, Matic, Fellaini, Fred, McT. We needed upgrades going into the summer and we ended it, having lost Herrera & Fellaini, bringing in no-one. That is disgraceful.

Forget 'rebuilding', that's gross negligence.

Ed and Ole are one and the same. The club giving up and throwing in the towel is how Ole has been appointed and we've been told to accept this new 'multi-year rebuild'.

We've been hearing this the past 6 years now. I see zero progress this year. If anything we're becoming even more irrelevant as each year passes. As now our top player definately wants out from the sinking ship.

The club showing serious ambition to me would be: Firing Ole, appointing a quality manager with real ambitions to win, ambitiously attracting upcoming top talent in the summer. A repeat of Mourinho's first summer.

With Ole still here, who are we going to attract? The Longstaff's? People can dress that up and call that progress if they like but it's nothing of the sort to me.

 

[RedDevilUnited369]

PLEASE STOP!

FAKING AN INJURY DOES NOT GET YOU A MOVE WHEN NO CLUB HAS MADE A BID!!

THERE IS LITERALLY NO LOGIC IN POGBA FAKING OR PURPOSELY PROLONGING HIS TIME ON THE SIDELINES.

Now if a suitable bid was on the table and he suddenly had a bad back or outright went on strike much like Van Dyke did when Liverpool offered £75m for him and Southampton were delaying then I could understand the rhetoric in this thread.

AND IF YOU THINK POGBA GOT JOSE THE SACK YOU ARE ALSO LACKING LOGIC!

Jose publicly praised Liverpool and their players after losing 3:0 to them whilst throwing OUR players under the bus. THAT ALONE IS A SACKABLE OFFENCE!

I’m starting to think RedCafe is made up of majority 15 yo supporters who have absolutely no clue on basic day to day running of a football club.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Two things, acting like a senior player has never made a team good and you don't have to make excuses, you can simply look at things rationally, which begins with not giving life to speculations about injuries because we seldomly do that for any one else, personally I can't remember an other example where people make that type of theories and as we discussed a few days ago, there is a lot of players with bad injury records.
Now, the most important point for me is the following hypothetical. If a player wants to leave, he can leave there are many good reasons for it such as money, glory or personal life decisions, they are all fine for me because football players aren't objects and football clubs make the same type of decisions, they declare players unwanted for money, football or personal reasons all the time and I have no reason to consider one acceptable and not the other. What matters is that down the line both sides find an agreement that suits everyone.
The other remark that I would make is that when a club does what we have done in the last 7 years, when it does everything wrong at boardroom level, when the club fails to strengthen the team year after year, when no one, fans included have faith in any sort of short term recovery you end up like Arsenal, where every decent player will question their long term presence in the club, at Arsenal they all left and no one came to replace them. It wasn't Van Persie's fault that Arsenal were shoddy and no one blames him for eventually leaving them for an historic rival.

That's the problem that I have with this fanbase at the moment, there is a sort of double personality where everyone knows that we are a mess that we only have few good players, that aren't even great or numerous enough to make a consistent first eleven but for some reason, we keep alternating our blames between them. One week it's Rashford, the other week it's Martial, the other week it's Maguire and all weeks it's Pogba. The reality is that the club is a mess we are no better than Tottenham in the 2000s or Arsenal today.

That’s a very good Post JP.

 

[Gehrman]

But how can you make that claim? Honestly it's shocking, you don't know how painful or uncomfortable it may be but you make that claim, you don't know what the long term consequences of playing through it are. You realize how daft that is, would you make that claim for anyone else without experiencing the same thing or even knowing precisely where the problem is?

I think it's pretty mental. If it wasn't Pogba, I don't think anyone would be making that claim.

 

[TRUERED89]

PLEASE STOP!

FAKING AN INJURY DOES NOT GET YOU A MOVE WHEN NO CLUB HAS MADE A BID!!

THERE IS LITERALLY NO LOGIC IN POGBA FAKING OR PURPOSELY PROLONGING HIS TIME ON THE SIDELINES.

Now if a suitable bid was on the table and he suddenly had a bad back or outright went on strike much like Van Dyke did when Liverpool offered £75m for him and Southampton were delaying then I could understand the rhetoric in this thread.

AND IF YOU THINK POGBA GOT JOSE THE SACK YOU ARE ALSO LACKING LOGIC!

Jose publicly praised Liverpool and their players after losing 3:0 to them whilst throwing OUR players under the bus. THAT ALONE IS A SACKABLE OFFENCE!

I’m starting to think RedCafe is made up of majority 15 yo supporters who have absolutely no clue on basic day to day running of a football club.

Please enlighten us then! Give us a breakdown

 

[Mainoldo]

Are we are back to xenophobia now in a team full of nationalities

Yes.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

The club has not "invested very seriously" since Mourinho's first summer. That was 3 years ago. Since then we have avg. a net spend of £70m. Do you think that is a reasonable outlay for a serious rebuild with a club with our resources?

You're mixing up what I'm saying. I'm not happy with what we've ended up with either. What's our NET spend compared to other major clubs like in that time frame? I bet it's not that different.

Fans on here seem to think we should have £150-200m NET to spend every single season. Well we don't. We are ran as a business not as a piggybank.

 

[JPRouve]

I think it's pretty mental. If it wasn't Pogba, I don't think anyone would be making that claim.

It's worth remembering that today Batistuta struggles to walk due to "playing through it".

 

[Bilbo]

You don't want to see reality. Ok.

Maybe a few more years of the same things, seeing our other best players leave will wake you up then.

Nobodys actually left though have they - that is the reality. Pogba and United has never been a happy marriage, so its only the doom-mongers such as yourself that want to paint this as a reflection of the club. That is your reality - not mine - and frankly I'm delighted I don't share that way of thinking.

The fact is that Pogba aside we appear to have a squad of players that are all committed to the club and want to improve. That is an encouraging foundation for us to build on.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

Yes.

Fantastic - so the fact Eric is a legend and we have many black players now and in the past that are revered doesn’t matter.

 

[Gehrman]

It's worth remembering that today Batistuta struggles to walk due to "playing through it".

I just think it's ludricious to assume that we know what his daily programme is and what his necessary for his rehabiltation. When I had a fitness regime, it was not problem to go the nearest gym in another country when I was traveling. Just because Pogba is not stuck in carrington doesn't mean he's not during what's necessary for himself on a daily basis.

 

[Majima]

Love this argument, so because a lot of people have had enough of one player and the circus around him we deserve obscurity and failure

No. What 'circus'? The only circus being created is by fans expecting one player to carry a whole team of misfits to success on his own.

If you believe this 'circus' will go away when Pogba leaves, then you are severely mistaken. Whoever else we have who becomes as good as he is, will also want out under our current direction. As we are going nowhere.

Did anyone blame RVP when he joined us to 'win trophies'? No it was accepted as normal.

Even Woodward has stopped giving it the big one this past year. That should tell you something. Anyone expecting any of this to change under Woodward/Glazers are in for a shock this summer when his replacement is Longstaff.

 

[Bilbo]

Funny thought because anything negative about Pogba you believe. But okay.

Also I don’t believe everything negative about the club but feel free to prove otherwise... But like your opinion on Pogba I wouldn’t be surprised if you jump the gun a lot.

My issue with Pogba is not about his injuries, real or otherwise. I have given up on him for the same reason that I gave up on Mourinho - they disrespect the club. He has an obligation to the supporters to make a statement after what his agent has stated recently. He has failed to do so, therefore he has lost my support. Now I look forward to him being sold for a good price and the club can move forward.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

No. What 'circus'? The only circus is being created by fans expecting one player to carry a team of misfits to success on his own.

If you believe this 'circus' will go away when Pogba leaves, then you are severely mistaken. Whoever else we have who becomes as good as he is, will also want out under our current direction. As we are going nowhere.

Did anyone blame RVP when he joined us to 'win' trophies? No it was accepted as normal.

Even Woodward has stopped giving it the big one this past year. That should tell you something. Anyone expecting any of this to change under Woodward/Glazers are in for a shock this summer when his replacement is Longstaff.

The Pogba circus will be gone at least and many on here will be happy about that.

 

[JPRouve]

Nobodys actually left though have they - that is the reality. Pogba and United has never been a happy marriage, so its only the doom-mongers such as yourself that want to paint this as a reflection of the club. That is your reality - not mine - and frankly I'm delighted I don't share that way of thinking.

The fact is that Pogba aside we appear to have a squad of players that are all committed to the club and want to improve. That is an encouraging foundation for us to build on.

But we are talking about fictitious situations here. We are assuming that Pogba absolutely wants to leave, if he did I'm sure that you would understand why. You may not like it, I know that I wouldn't like his arguments but there is a range of reasonable ones, the most obvious being that we aren't looking like a team on the up or managed in a way that would make us believe that it will happen soon. The day Pogba leaves United, he will be a nobody for me, the same way I had no time for Ronaldo but I understand the idea that Ronaldo wanted to specifically play for Real Madrid it's a personal choice that I understand even if I didn't like it.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Don't see the logic in him staying, better yet, if you look at it from his point of view why should he stay here at a seemingly failing club? Entering his prime years too.

Probably best for both sides that he goes.

 

[Mainoldo]

Fantastic - so the fact Eric is a legend and we have many black players now and in the past that are revered doesn’t matter.

What black legends? Ole’s a greater legend than Andy Cole.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Raiola's comments about United are the final straw, without a doubt. He's absolutely trashed us, Solskjaer, Woodward etc. He simply has to go, there is no way back.

Anybody that is still arguing his case is naive and out of touch with reality. Have some fecking pride, this player is shitting on you and all the other supporters and you're just lapping it all up like some desperate idiots.

The drama

Pride is a silly thing, United in this current state deserve to be shat on, just as Arsenal deserved to lose the likes of RVP & Sanchez when the best they could manage every year was 4th. We're not even at that Wenger Arsenal-level, we're a level below though, fighting for 5th most years and it looks worse than ever now.

Don't expect any single top player to want to come here during this "project" and don't expect any top player to want to stay, fortunately for us, we only have one top player worthy of demanding more, the other one we had (DDG) seems to have lost his lust for being the best after too many years going through this shit.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

If Pogba was British and played in that 80’s team he’d be a legend right now too.

Nah. He hasn't put in the sort of performances Robson did consistently - at all. He isn't as good a player as Robson was either, for that matter.

But, of course, there is a point to be made here - I have said as much before: When Robson was in his absolute prime, he did play for United teams that were - relatively speaking - better and more functional than anything Pogba has enjoyed (at United). Not all the time, but at times - undoubtedly.

The idea that he single-handedly carried a shite team is an exaggeration, at best - comparable to the oddly persistent narrative that Maradona carried a bunch of no-marks to glory for Argentina and Napoli.

 

[Mainoldo]

My issue with Pogba is not about his injuries, real or otherwise. I have given up on him for the same reason that I gave up on Mourinho - they disrespect the club. He has an obligation to the supporters to make a statement after what his agent has stated recently. He has failed to do so, therefore he has lost my support. Now I look forward to him being sold for a good price and the club can move forward.

Probably just our different perspective. I gave up on Mourinho because he was shite.

 

[izzydiggler]

No. What 'circus'? The only circus being created is by fans expecting one player to carry a whole team of misfits to success on his own.

What circus?!?

 

[Strelok]

Felix aint worth 126 and should never have cost such a stupid amount. It's not a good argument.

Regardless of whether Felix is actually worth that much or ATM is stupid or not it does seem that you don't know how transfers work imho.

The players market is not a supermarket where everything has a price tag on it so how would the buyers or sellers know what is the right price of a player? It's mostly based on the perceived talent of the player in question, the amounts of recently done transfers and the perceived talent of the players in such transfers.

Even if it's a stupid amount and Felix is actually not worth that much then people could argue even him could be sold for that much why my player who is much better than him can not be sold for more?

It's the same with the situation where Sanchez is getting ~500 £k a week and every players started to ask why that fecker who basically do and contribute nothing could get that much while they are contributing to the team but get much lower. Could you blame them or say what they thought is wrong ? Definitely no and that's how transfers work imho.

 

[SteveJ]

Give us a breakdown

He's just had one, by the look of it.

 

[Majima]

Nobodys actually left though have they - that is the reality. Pogba and United has never been a happy marriage, so its only the doom-mongers such as yourself that want to paint this as a reflection of the club. That is your reality - not mine - and frankly I'm delighted I don't share that way of thinking.

The fact is that Pogba aside we appear to have a squad of players that are all committed to the club and want to improve. That is an encouraging foundation for us to build on.

Is it summer yet? Wait till then. Doom-monger? Are you having a laugh? Of course it's a reflection of the club. It reflects the past 6 years of failure. That we're going nowhere. Wait till the summer, when we struggle to attract anyone of note, call me a doom-monger then.

What other top players do we have right now apart from Pogba? De Gea has tried to leave twice.

The only truly top player we have wants out. I wonder why?

Yes a squad of players who aren't good enough to win anything. I don't think that's anything to shout about. They are commited because they are being paid beyond their worth. Why would they want to leave?

The point I'm making is that the club itself has thrown in the towel and doesn't have the will to invest to compete at the top anymore.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

What black legends? Ole’s a greater legend than Andy Cole.

Can go back to Viv Anderson to me pal, but Cole and Yorke certainly are, if you don’t think so maybe you have a problem.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

It's worth remembering that today Batistuta struggles to walk due to "playing through it".

Never heard that before. Thanks for the information. It is sad that a great player or any other player for that matter struggles to walk for "playing through it".

 

[JPRouve]

Nah. He hasn't put in the sort of performances Robson did consistently - at all. He isn't as good a player as Robson was either, for that matter.

But, of course, there is a point to be made here - I have said as much before: When Robson was in his absolute prime, he did play for United teams that were - relatively speaking - better and more functional than anything Pogba has enjoyed (at United). Not all the time, but at times - undoubtedly.

The idea that he single-handedly carried a shite team is an exaggeration, at best - comparable to the oddly persistent narrative that Maradona carried a bunch of no-marks to glory for Argentina and Napoli.

This is for me one of the most important, some think that it's an excuse but Pogba while being a very good players is far from the best players that United have had and he isn't in the same galaxy than the some of the all time greats mentioned in his threads. If that's what people expect from Pogba then he will never match their expectations.

 

[Bilbo]

But we are talking about fictitious situations here. We are assuming that Pogba absolutely wants to leave, if he did I'm sure that you would understand why. You may not like it, I know that I wouldn't like his arguments but there is a range of reasonable ones, the most obvious being that we aren't looking like a team on the up or managed in a way that would make us believe that it will happen soon. The day Pogba leaves United, he will be a nobody for me, the same way I had no time for Ronaldo but I understand the idea that Ronaldo wanted to specifically play for Real Madrid it's a personally choice that I understand even if I didn't like it.

I think we are pretty close to agreement here. As I said in the post you replied to, Pogba and United has never had the appearance of a happy marriage. Some people will think he should be looking elsewhere because we aren't matching his ambitions, whereas others will feel that he could have done more to ensure that we were reaching those targets.

Ultimately though it doesn't matter. The club have shipped out some players that are not contributing or that didn't want to be here. If Pogba is in that camp then he has to go too. What I take issue with is the notion that we are not showing potential. I believe we have the nucleus of a very good football team here and that we are 2 or 3 signings away from being a lot, lot better. What a great asset it would be to have a happy and on-form Pogba involved in that. We are not talking about a Harry Kane here who hasn't ever won a trophy. Pogba is already a decorated player. He could make all of this speculation go away by stating his intentions, but just like the Raiola comments he seems to prefer to stay in the background and not contribute.

 

[kouroux]

Some of our fans need to differentiate between legitimate concerns /criticism and pure lunacy