What reports on his current state of fitness? How long has he been in proper training for?
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Post some defensive stats that back up your opinion that Pogba offers zero defensively
He actually had our highest overall defensive score last season according to Whoscored (although I confess I don’t know how they calculate this).
Really?!
You might be remembering things way differently here..
The truth is and the common theme in all of these 'drop of form' is that the managing/coaching was shite from both Mourinho and Ole after his initial bounce.
Nobody played well. Some had higher bottom levels than others but pretty much every one was playing crap.
At least Ole has shown what he lacks in perhaps meticulous coaching/tactics, he had more than made up (thus far) with fantastic man management, getting the club, league and making the players believe in his vision.
Mourinho managed to turn his Real Madrid team, who won the league, scoring a crazy amount of goals and players like Ronaldo against him. He then repeated that at Chelsea. Rinse repeat and then at Utd. He absolutely sabotaged our team with his short term aimless and uninspired tactics, expecting players to obey like dogs, expecting them to 'just perform' with no plan and having no nuance at all in his managing style. Pogba like everyone deserves his fair share of criticism and perhaps even more than others but nobody had a platform to perform like they have now with Ole. The difference is that Pogba was 10x more creative and productive than 90% of the squad and yet still playing at shite as everyone else.
Yep...you only have to watch with your own eyes to see a player who uses what he has defensively albeit his first instinct is offensive.
Good luck to the joker justifying his claims.
I'm going to do many hours of research to back up my opinion to win you over, because it's important to me. And I am greatly humbled by your wishes of good luck.
That article actually puts context, which always seems to favor Pogba, as opposed to opinions which always seem to go against him. Thanks for linking the article, very interesting given the narrative around here by some.
I think Pogba’s languid style and technical ability tends to fool people into thinking he doesn’t contribute defensively when in actuality he’s putting in some work.
Guy is a complete midfielder, but I guess if you’re not running around like Kante or if your repertoire isn’t just tackling like Ndidi people will say you don’t contribute defensively.
Guy is a complete midfielder, but I guess if you’re not running around like Kante or if your repertoire isn’t just tackling like Ndidi people will say you don’t contribute defensively.
I totally agree with all of that. Alot of fans don't know what they want Pogba to do in this team. However; this comes down to the managers as well. Jose had Pogba in a 4-2-3-1 with Matic most times, like you said as a DLP but that does not work when you don't have a creator ahead of him. He will feel the pressure because of what he can do to create and get dragged out of position.
We have seen this when he loses the ball in the middle of the park trying to perform a skill and we get countered, which I feel comes from lack of options.
With Bruno ahead of him, hopefully Pogba can now shine as the box to box type player for us where he can join the attack creating with Bruno and having space to take his shots from the edge of the box, also helping out as a body in defence. We don't need him to make sliding tackles or the like, occupying space is just as good so we are compact defensively.
Personally, I do feel Pogba's position is better with a DM next to him so he can utilise his long range passing / shooting. Pogba can find a pass from 3 yards to 30 yards with the same accuracy.
Isolating his input to one field won't help explain why I've had criticism for him. In short the answer is still no, I don't think it's consistent for his standards - was it something like 80% of his goals/assists came in a 3 month last season? - although this might need to be double checked?
For every blitzing performance (say City or Bournemouth, or any of Ole's first 14 games), there are too many examples of really bad ones. Such as Palace or Everton or Huddersfield in the same season. A player of his ilk hasnot been able to demonstrate more consistency in that sense and that's the sole qualm I have. When he's good he's really fecking good but he just needs to demonstrate it more often.
Pogba can be whatever midfielder he likes because he has the talent to do everything. He can be a deep lying playmaker, or a box to box engine or someone making late runs into the box for the "easy" goals you refer to (e.g. vs Bournemouth over Christmas last year). It would help if the managers would just keep him in a set role that he knows and one that he can own, even Ole is guilty of moving Pogba around too much. This means the failed consistency point I raised is not just Pogba's own fault.
This point would make more sense if we didn't just see Bruno come straight into the first team, fit in and knit the exact same team together.
I think this is the best way of looking at it and an underrated point in the schema of the current team's health.
I've said this before. There are certain players that know how to carry a team(there's a thread on this). Pogba doesn't. He's one of the best players when his team is playing well and isn't good when the team is playing bad. Bruno however was carrying a shit Sporting on his back. Coming to United to do the same isn't so surprising
This point would make more sense if we didn't just see Bruno come straight into the first team, fit in and knit the exact same team together.
I think this is the best way of looking at it and an underrated point in the schema of the current team's health.
For Pete's sake, 10 games is a very small sample size to be making definitive conclusions. People also love to pretend that when Ole arrived Pogba's form during that time when we went about 12 or so games unbeaten, winning 8 straight, his form was better than Bruno's currently yet it all unravel. Nothing to do with player X or Y knowing how to carry teams or not.
Without proper reinforcement solely relying on Bruno for creative output in midfield still wouldn't work, heck even in our unbeaten run we still had duds games(Everton, Wolves) so let's not pretend that it's been flawless. This narrative about a single player completely fixing a completely dysfunctional team is media bogus and buzz words thrown around.
Why didn't Bruno fix his Portuguese team(Sporting Lisbon)'s fortune and had them winning titles after titles if 1 player can fix it all, because the team simply wasn't good enough therefore 1 good player won't fix everything.
Without proper reinforcement solely relying on Bruno for creative output in midfield still wouldn't work, heck even in our unbeaten run we still had duds games(Everton, Wolves) so let's not pretend that it's been flawless. This narrative about a single player completely fixing a completely dysfunctional team is media bogus and buzz words thrown around.
Why didn't Bruno fix his Portuguese team(Sporting Lisbon)'s fortune and had them winning titles after titles if 1 player can fix it all, because the team simply wasn't good enough therefore 1 good player won't fix everything.
It isn't even about carrying the team. It is pretty obvious that even though Fernandez might not have the same level of talent or physical ability that he makes up for it with his levels of application and synergy of overall game to the current team/setup.
It's crazy, I have serious reservations about some aspects of Pogba but his goals and assists are not one of them. Pogba has to be the guy who assists the assister if that makes any sense. I hated seeing him try to take in 3 players 40 yards from our own goal because of the lack of options. Now we can make sure he is doing that 20 yards further and with confident players moving like actual footballers.He gets held to standards damn near no other CM does.
Saw Kroos career goal stats at Rea the other day after he set a new personal best and he's never come close to putting up numbers like Pogba last season in a much better squad yet has consistently been considered world class for years, not arguing he isn't either.
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Same with Modric who doesn't put up crazy stats but can impact the game in other ways as all great CM's typically have.
Only Pogba gets judged damn near exclusively on G+A's as a CM and even then people will try nitpicking those numbers as well
No dancing, no pissing about with the opposition having a laugh just a serious Paul Pogba out classing everyone around him. I see a maturity blooming in our squad with Rashford and Maguire, a tenacity with Bruno and Fred and a big point to prove for the squad in general. Pogba can be the big fecking cherry if he wants but it has to be about the club and nothing else. Liverpool winning the league coupled with a huge point difference should be fecking shameful to them. I want to see them fecking rip it up.
Bruno has only ever played in a team that actually had its act together.
Ole has quietly got this team working well in defence and midfield, we just lacked the creative touch.
2/3 years Pogba has been here the team has been a mess all over the place under Jose, he never got the team playing as a team at all.
Yes Fernandes came in and made an immediate difference because he's clearly a fantastic player, but to use that to spite Pogba is just silly.
We will see from now, I'd be amazed if the team performs worse with Pogba in the team.
Personally I found he was just having to do TOO MUCH. How many other midfielders need to build play, get into the box and score and then be there to win the ball back?
He has to play 3 roles that other midfielders don't at all.
Ole has quietly got this team working well in defence and midfield, we just lacked the creative touch.
2/3 years Pogba has been here the team has been a mess all over the place under Jose, he never got the team playing as a team at all.
Yes Fernandes came in and made an immediate difference because he's clearly a fantastic player, but to use that to spite Pogba is just silly.
We will see from now, I'd be amazed if the team performs worse with Pogba in the team.
Personally I found he was just having to do TOO MUCH. How many other midfielders need to build play, get into the box and score and then be there to win the ball back?
He has to play 3 roles that other midfielders don't at all.
That is a very good point, for example Fred has been fantastic this season (arguably our POTY) and there's no judgement in relation to his goal/assist output because that's not his role in the team.
With the introduction of Bruno we should hope it takes some of the burden off Pogba and allows him to focus on his own role, should also help that he won't be targeted by the opposition as much since teams can't afford to focus their efforts and double up on him in the midfield with a view to stifling our creativity now that Bruno also offers that dimension.
I can see where people are coming from with regards to being wary about a midfield 3 that contains the 2 of them being too attacking at the expense of defensive shape and discipline, however as someone else mentioned neither of them are Ozil and the attacking contributions of both playing in tandem may be worth offsetting the more grounded approach of a Fred or McTominay (who also could play as the 3rd piece of the puzzle instead of Matic). Anyway nice to have options!
Yes. I can see some are getting a bit touchy here.
Oh Pogba applies himself and has synergy and all that. It just happens mostly when the team is playing well. That's the type of player he is
Some people have forgotten just what a good player Pogba is. We’ve played (almost) an entire season without him. He’s going to come on the pitch and instantly create goalscoring opportunities. I mean, that’s a big deal.
With that said, I wouldn’t start him on Friday. I’d stick with Fred, Matic and Bruno and give him half an hour let loose in the second half. We’d be sensible not to make him the story of the first half.
With that said, I wouldn’t start him on Friday. I’d stick with Fred, Matic and Bruno and give him half an hour let loose in the second half. We’d be sensible not to make him the story of the first half.
Remember his cameo v Watford? Incredible, constantly making chancee, so much creativity.
Absolutely buzzing to see him in red!
Yep I think we will ease him in also. He's been out of action for a long time and 1 month of training might not make him back to his best yet.
Bruno is a fantastic player, he’s been a breath of fresh air in the team mostly. I always revert to Cantona when looking for a player who transformed a team....I’m not sure Cantona would have transformed the 1990 side in the same way he did the 93 side though. Timing is very important.
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Agreed.
I just find it strange to say "Pogba couldn't carry this team like Fernandes can" when it's been a span of 10 games with the team actually in decent form.
Pogba has played for United in some really stale, low confident teams. No surprise that when Ibrahimovic was here that had a similar type of talismanic attitude like Cantona/Fernandes the team played a lot better. Leadership is obviously very important to some teams. The improvement since Maguire joined also has been important I feel.
Ole has to take credit also, he's given players like Fred a chance to shine and didnt throw him in the bin the minute he had an average performance.
That's what I really disliked about Jose, he would be waiting for them to mess up rather than be happy with what they're doing and forget the small error. He did this to Shaw, Fred and Martial in particular.
Anyway my point is teams and players always play better when confident and winning. There's no doubt in my mind Pogba was feeling dissulosioned and frustrated with the way Mourinho handled things and he maybe didn't play his best in that period, but the guy is such a great player.
I think it's fair to say the public spat with Mourinho and the way he labelled him a virus has really poisoned peoples minds towards him.
I hope he can finish the season strongly and help us get top 4, then commit himself in the summer, this team could really go somewhere IMO.
Everyone was up and down under Mourinho, and the reality is that Pogba was actually 'up' more than just about anyone else.
Take last season before Mourinho was fired for example. For the first month or two of the season Pogba and Shaw were by far our best players. Then they both went downhill and nobody in the team was actually playing particularly well. At this point there were massive rumours Mourinho was going to be fired until Pogba and Martial stepped up and basically single-handedly kept him in a job (strangely the two players he treated the worst). After another month or two those two dropped away and we were back at a stage where nobody in the team was playing well and Mourinho eventually got fired.
Pogba being 50/50 good and bad during that period does look poor. But then you look at every other player on the team and realise that everyone else was even worse, yet for some reason Pogba was the one that everyone attacked. To this day people are still trying to rewrite history and claim that Pogba was shit all season except for the period after Ole took over.
Pogba's consistency is something that can certainly be improved. But it has to be taken in the context that he has been surrounded with poor players with low confidence in a poor system under a manager who is long past his best. Let's see how he goes in a team that is hopefully on the up with better players in a better system.
Well said. I agree it's bizarre people picking on his performance in particular when the whole team were low on confidence and playing poorly.
He wont come on the pitch and instantly create chances. He was fully fit at the start of the season and we still struggled to create anything apart from when alreayd a goal up against Chelsea.
I think Fernandes is a much bigger help in that regard, but Pogba is potentially lethal when the space does open up on the break or our forwards can actually make runs in behind.
I'm really not sure how our midfield works with both of them, but at least it's a much better problem than trying to figure out how to make it work with neither.
I've just been watching the MUTV podcast with Pogba and he's quite an interesting guy to listen to. I almost think that's part of the problem with him. He's almost too smart/individual for his own good. Going on about being angry as soon as he signed for us because he wanted to train with the first team and Ravel Morrison trying to start a fight with him
Exactly
It's like people accepted the whole team played at a shite level, but because Pogba had moments of magic he got blamed because he couldn't produce that every match and win it by himself "consistently". Then they answer that back with "oh he cost 89m he should" people like that are just insane.
He did vs Watford for example when we had struggle for 70 minutes prior. The Chelsea game you mentioned, didn’t he set two goals up in that game with brilliant assists? Or is your issue that he didn’t create chance after chance against our rivals, or that he didn’t create the first goal ? In contrast you could look at the Wolves game or the Everton games where with Fernandes we didn’t create much.He wont come on the pitch and instantly create chances. He was fully fit at the start of the season and we still struggled to create anything apart from when alreayd a goal up against Chelsea.
I think Fernandes is a much bigger help in that regard, but Pogba is potentially lethal when the space does open up on the break or our forwards can actually make runs in behind.
I'm really not sure how our midfield works with both of them, but at least it's a much better problem than trying to figure out how to make it work with neither.
I've just been watching the MUTV podcast with Pogba and he's quite an interesting guy to listen to. I almost think that's part of the problem with him. He's almost too smart/individual for his own good. Going on about being angry as soon as he signed for us because he wanted to train with the first team and Ravel Morrison trying to start a fight with him
For what it’s worth I think both are great creative players, Pogba is probably a bit more rounded than Fernandes so is capable of playing in more positions, but is equally if not more creative. Fernandes moves into spaces better and links the play in the final third. So I think they will compliment each other fine.
Fellaini since Moyes left is also an option for consistency
I think there needs to be a consideration for the overall standard of performance because Valencia, Young, fellaini were nowhere near Pogbas level of performance even if someone argued that they were more consistent (Valencia consistently meh, Young not consistent over 3 years anyway, Fellaini pretty much always the same, if you used him in the right way he was effective, otherwise he was dire)
The ceiling of Pogba was higher, but he has also performed at much lower level when he had stinkers.
A much lower level than Young, Valencia or Fellaini at their worst?
You can’t seriously believe that Pogbas worst level is lower than Fellaini’s worst level. That’s the kind of delusion that makes it hard to discuss pogba on this forum.
Anyone reckon he starts alongside Bruno tomorrow? If so whose the 3rd you'd match with them out of McTominay, Fred or even Matic?
I've said it before but it's confirmation bias. There's no other explanation. People don't even realise they're doing it.
With so many changes and players available it's hard to know what he'll do.
If he was to start with the pair of them I'd say it would be ahead of Matic, given how well he was playing before the break. Hopefully to build up a lead and then swap out whoever gets tired.
The alternative is start with something like Mc T, Fred Bruno and bring on Matic and Pogba as needed.
We don't know how fit everyone is though which I think will be the deciding factor for who starts.
Yes it is more clear with Pogba when he is off and nothing works for him.
With the others you always get the physical aspect of the game and doing the basic things.
Mainly with Valencia and Young in the past.
With Fellaini it depend on the role he is given. As a deeper midfielder he could be terrible and totally destroyed at times like Pogba.
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