@desmondisback
As i already mentioned, if Pogba fails at United or if he leaves to search for greener pastures, it will certainly be one of Mourinho's biggest defeats and something that will follow him for the rest of his career. I repeat that i'm not on this forum to defend Mourinho. I still believe that it's not such a crazy idea but let's just leave it there and save ourselves from the trouble of going in circles on this matter. I also believe that if there's a rift between Pogba and Mourinho and the manager decides to put Pogba on the transfer list, he will hit the wall named Woodward. Pogba is a valuable asset to the club and Mourinho is certainly not Ferguson. But maybe i'm wrong, we'll see.
I would like to see Pogba in the Lampard role as much as you. The thing is we don't have an Essien right now at United to make everything easier for us. This position has plagued us since the days of Scholes' return from retirement. We knew we were living on borrowed time with Scholes and 40 yo Giggs there but we didn't make any plans and we ultimately failed to fill the gap these two left behind. Since then we have a series of players who have failed to provide a solution: Morgan, Bastian, Fellaini, Herrera and the list goes on. And the problem is that they're not easy to find. In that sense, i won't hold the initial idea of Pogba in a deeper role against Mourinho. But yeah, if it all results in a clusterfeck like the one you described, Mourinho will have to take the blame because in the end, the buck stops with the manager.
I think that Mourinho is at a crossroad. His tactics are not infallible anymore. He's always looked to enforce his style of play deeper in his own half of the pitch. Firstly, cut off everything that tries to go through the central channels defensively and then use good skills on the ball in order to move the ball smoothly from one end of the pitch to the other. And unlike Ferguson who preferred the wings to build up attacks, Mourinho likes the ball to travel through the middle of the park. Now that many teams press and attack with more players, he finds himself in a difficult predicament. He worked his way around it at Chelsea by turning Fabregas into a deep-lying playmaker. Let's not forget that his move to deploy a midfield that consisted of Matic & Fabregas raised a few eyebrows back then. When we signed Pogba, i was sure that he would try him in that role. But maybe it's not meant to be and maybe Scholes was right just before New Year when he slated Mourinho for his utilization of Pogba. And it was a very harsh criticism because Scholes questioned Pogba's overall ability to dictate the tempo from deep and therefore indicated that Mourinho has made a terrible judgement call. And maybe that's why Mourinho chose to use a post-match conference to answer to Scholes' comments in particular.
Maybe that's where our opinions differ. I expected Mourinho to try Pogba in the #8 role and i didn't think of it as the worst idea in the world. In terms of chess, you can say that i always expected Mourinho to be more of a Karpov, a Fischer or a Petrosian than a Kasparov, a Tal or an Alekhine.