Paul has scored a lot of goals for us before this season?
Honestly I don't think anybody can run beyond Bruno in this side. He just tries too many risky passes thst gives away possession to be worth it.
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Honestly I don't think anybody can run beyond Bruno in this side. He just tries too many risky passes thst gives away possession to be worth it.
Exactly
Regardless of the fact that he scored against villa in July, this is a very strange take.
How many players playing in a double pivot in a 4-2-3-1 are expected to score goals?
You wouldn't swap him with KDB? I'm sorry but this is type of thing I am talking about on here. Both play similar roles where they can play further forward or from a little deeper. They are both CM's and it's not even a contest. KDB is a far superior player. He performs week in and week out. He's just been named Player of the year. When has Pogba even got close to that accolade in the PL in 4 years? He's not even won our own club version nevermind the whole league.
I get that we're United fans but take off the red tinted specs boys.
Isn't that just 100% minus pass completion%?
He’s scored very few goals in open play. They tend to stick in the memory because they’re such a rarity. He should definitely be scoring more. And this has always been an issue. Long before we signed Bruno.
Recently, though, when did he last even look like scoring? Any examples you can think of? Don’t you think he should be offering more as an attacking threat?
They clearly don’t play the same role, at all. How many times have you seen Kevin with the ball 10 yards outside his own box? How often so you see Pogba there?
And for the record, Kevin is a better player, but that’s it, no other midfielder is better than Pogba in the PL. Yet you wouldn’t think he was in the top 20 reading your posts.
Sounds like Bruno. Who plays 15 yards ahead at that.
If he did get forward more wouldnt it be into the space that Bruno needs to operate in? Add in a number 9 who likes to drop deep I cant see how he can make forward runs without congesting the play?
I do think he offers more playing deeper when he can switch the play for the overload or be the outlet to deep blocks when our attackers have to pass it back and be creative with it.
I can still close my eyes and see that player be Matic or Scott and it brings back bad memories.
KDB isnt a CM. Their CMs are Gundogan and Rodri who City fans absolutely hate for their one paced, cowardly play.
Which kind of proves my point.
KDB and Pogba don't have the same roles. I prefer KDB but your vision is wrong even in a midfield 3 KDB essentially plays as an attacking midfielder that drift wide and creates from wide areas, Pogba has done that on few occasions for Allegri to a pretty good level but otherwise he has mainly played as box to box and fairly regular midfielder with limited responsibilities.
Plenty of times. He plays everywhere. He's that good.
And Pogba quite simply isn't the 2nd best midfielder in the league is he because he doesn't perform like he is. He's got the ability to be the 2nd best, I have always said that to be the case. But he's actually got to turn up and be that player and quite often he simply doesn't.
Do you think Liverpool, City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs fans think Pogba is the 2nd best midfielder in the PL? I don't.
Ok, since that goal in July we’ve played eight games of football. Can you remind me of a single incident in those eight games where Pogba came close to scoring? I’ve asked this a few times but nobody seems able to answer. Which speaks volumes. We had 26 shots on goal against Copenhagen ffs. How many came from Pogba?!
I’m not expecting him to score a goal every 2 or 3 games but I do think he should be a hell of a lot more of an attacking threat than he has been so far and I’m genuinely at a loss as to why. As a young player his long range shooting was a real feature of his game. But it hasn’t improved at all. The opposite, if anything. It’s got to the stage where Id be more hopeful of McTominay scoring in any given gam than I would be of Pogba doing the same. Which is nuts.
You had me going in the first half
The fact that this is where the Pogba conversation has inevitably gone, after Sunday’s performance, just proves it’s own point.
In a few months, the detail is washed away. All that sticks is that ‘we have had issue with his performance for months’. I’ll take this opportunity to again remind people that we are having this conversation after he was quite possibly the best player on the pitch. Anyway, now let’s continue.
In a few months, the detail is washed away. All that sticks is that ‘we have had issue with his performance for months’. I’ll take this opportunity to again remind people that we are having this conversation after he was quite possibly the best player on the pitch. Anyway, now let’s continue.
Pogba has played different roles whilst playing for us. As has KDB in some games. Both are creative CM's. Stop making excuses.
Yes he is, and he does.
89% passing accuracy while not even in his best position is damn good, completed 9 dribbles too (personal record) and was the highest rated player in the game on whoscored ratings. KdB dropped 59% accuracy in Citys biggest game of the season and Bruno make a lot of braindead decisions (far more than Pogba did when he played advanced) but nobody has the same energy for their low percentage football. Pogba be a Hollywood player if he played like that 
Pogba is a more efficient player than both. Its shows how good he is that he can keep 89% while also completing that many dribbles, Funny how since Pogba went deep again we cant score without penalties but it's Pogba attacking output and efficiency that is in question
This agenda stinks
Pogba is a more efficient player than both. Its shows how good he is that he can keep 89% while also completing that many dribbles, Funny how since Pogba went deep again we cant score without penalties but it's Pogba attacking output and efficiency that is in question
This agenda stinks
Pogba has almost exclusively played in a double pivot, De Bruyne has almost exclusively played as an attacking midfielder in a 4231 or 433, centrally and wide. If you really want to suggest a swap deal it would have to be Bruno for De Bruyne in our current set up. Now if you suggested the last version of David Silva and Pogba then I could get it and I would pick prime Silva over Pogba.
He's never scored a huge amount of goals and has scored every 4 or 5 games throughout his career but obviously 1 in 13 in the PL this season is much lower than that.
Isn't that more to do with the fact that he's not really getting into shooting positions because of the role he's being asked to play since the introduction of Bruno?
He's getting criticism for being wasteful but he rarely takes on a shot, preferring to lay the ball off to a teammate who's in a better position.
Was googling Pogba “goals from open play” and found a tweet from September last year and he hadn’t scored from open play in the previous 25 games (all pre-Bruno). One goal since then. I’m willing to bet that Kante has a better goal-scoring record from open play for Chelsea over the last season or two than Pogba has at United. Which of these two players would you want/expect to be the bigger goal threat?
@Withnail
And Pogba has scored and assisted when playing in a forward role?
Now hes deeper, he doesnt.
He had 16 goals and 11 assists last season, whats the argument here?
Second best midfielder in the division yet gets nowhere near our own player of the season awards, let alone the whole divisions. Can't you see the bias there?
He's been that amazing for us DDG (2 times) and Luke Shaw have been voted as having better seasons for us than him by our own bleeding staff. So our own players clearly don't agree with our fans then do they?
He's been that amazing for us DDG (2 times) and Luke Shaw have been voted as having better seasons for us than him by our own bleeding staff. So our own players clearly don't agree with our fans then do they?
That cant be true? He had 16 goals at the end up right?
Maybe with that bad run we had under Ole that finished the season but the side was a mess back then.
Nobody was scoring.
Few great goal scoring PL mids compared with Pogba.
| Mins | Goals | Assists | Mins per goal | Mins per G+A | Goals exluding Pens | Mins per goal (Excluding pens) | Mins per G+A (excluding pens) | |
| Pogba | 9043 | 25 | 26 | 361.72 | 177.31 | 18 | 502.39 | 205.52 |
| Lampard | 48909 | 177 | 102 | 276.32 | 175.30 | 145 | 337.30 | 198.01 |
| Gerrard | 41159 | 121 | 92 | 340.16 | 193.23 | 91 | 452.30 | 224.91 |
| Yaya Toure | 18237 | 62 | 32 | 294.15 | 194.01 | 51 | 357.59 | 219.72 |
My bad. Was 26 games where he didn’t score from open play, as of October 1st. Has scored one goal since then. Don’t know how many more games he’s played. Must be at least a dozen.
Pogba has never really been a major goal threat.
I doubt Pogba even played 25 games since his last open play goal pre-Bruno, let alone failed to score. He scored from open play in February last year at Fulham, and missed almost all of the first half of the season. In fact, he scored from open play later than that again Chelsea in the Cup, which may have been as late as March.
How many open play goals has our current 10 scored in his 25 games?
Stays doesnt tell the whole story then. I find it incredibly difficult to use a season that had 16 goals and 11 assists as a time frame to claim he isnt a threat around the box.
Teams double marked Pogba to stop us as the season wore on and it worked. The rest of the side wasnt good enough to cope with it. Thats one of the benifits that was repeated to death about Bruno, opposition cant double mark players anymore to kill us.
I know im arguing about 16 goals but I think that was an odd season. Paul was never really a goal scorer, these Utd seasons outstrips his Juve goal records by a distance. Hes a lot more midfield Scholes than Lampard.
In fact thats the position hes playing in now funnily enough. Scholes was 10x the player Pogba was and his goalscoring fell off a mountain, never mind a cliff, when he sat back there.
Dunno why Pogba is expected to be a major goal threat, when his role in the team right now is of a deep lying playmaker. If you criticise him in this role like say of his passing needs to be more secure, or his ability to control the tempo of the game, these are valid constructive criticisms(not saying they are justified). But why would you criticise him for lack of goals, when other players who have the same role dont its unfair. Do the likes of Kroos/Veratti/Xavi/Scholes(in his later days) or any other centre mid/#8 get judged on their ability to score goals? No. Its absurd.
When Pogba was given a free role and was scoring/assisting for fun, people criticised him for not playing a more box to box role and controlling the game with his passing ability. When he is given a more restrained/deeper role, he is criticised for not scoring/assisting.
People expect him to be a #8 and a #10 at once(because of his versatile skillset and pricetag) and its very very unfair. You cant expect him to control the game like Alonso and also be a goal scorer like Gerrard. Right now Bruno has the #10 role where his job is to be creative and be a goal threat, while Pogba is expected to sit deep, circulate the ball, and link the defence with the attack. He is doing a good job.
When Pogba was given a free role and was scoring/assisting for fun, people criticised him for not playing a more box to box role and controlling the game with his passing ability. When he is given a more restrained/deeper role, he is criticised for not scoring/assisting.
People expect him to be a #8 and a #10 at once(because of his versatile skillset and pricetag) and its very very unfair. You cant expect him to control the game like Alonso and also be a goal scorer like Gerrard. Right now Bruno has the #10 role where his job is to be creative and be a goal threat, while Pogba is expected to sit deep, circulate the ball, and link the defence with the attack. He is doing a good job.
Verratti has 11 career goals, he is allergic to the box, he rarely ventures around it.
Perfectly said.
Since Kroos joined Madrid, Kroos + Modric scored 26 league goals, Pogba has 25 league goals since 2016.
edit: Before anyone starts, No I didnt say Pogba is better than both.
I'm not really sure what your point is.
As I said he's never scored a huge amount of goals and especially with Bruno in the team he isn't getting into those positions.
He's got 1 in 13, Kante has 3 in 20 - Does that really matter? How many PL players in his position score a lot of goals?
Would you rate him higher if he'd scored 4 goals instead of 1 since he got back into the team?
To do that he'd have to take on quite a few more shots which could be to the detriment of the team's overall play so I don't see the benefit to be honest.
Generally speaking, the expectation of Pogba is to be whatever version he is not being at any given time. It’s an ever shifting demand, so that he’s never where he needs to be as a player.
For example, take his match-winning performance against City. The response was the same. ‘You see, when I criticise Pogba it is because I know that he’s capable of this’. That’s the Pogba they want. Or is it...? When France won the World Cup and he played a more restricted and disciplined role very well, it was then said that THAT was the version of Pogba we want to see all the time, and we would all be happy if he could do that every week. When Ole joined and he played an offensive role, that was also THE version of Pogba we have been waiting for.
The truth is, unless he finds a way to be all of them simultaneously, he will not be doing enough. He’s had some dodgy games since his return, but on the whole, he’s played the role he’s been given very well. The praise was unanimous after Spurs, Sheffield, Brighton and co. Same against Norwich, he came on and changed the game. He had a few dodgy games from Southampton. Then he’s been back to doing what he was doing just after lockdown. Only the praise didn’t return with it. He should be doing more. He should be scoring more from open play. Our actual 10 barely scores from open play, but the issue is why isn’t Pogba.
I'm not as Pogba fan, but I thought he played well against Seville, albeit that he has a habit of losing the ball in his own half on occasion. I'm not convinced that both he and Bruno can perform together in the team, both would be at their best in a more forward midfield position. Pogba could play on the left side of a three, provided there was a DM, and a box to box player on the right.
I think the problem with Pogba is that he's an exceptionally talented player who still doesn't actually have a role in a midfield three he can perform to a high enough level, he's essentially a very expensive jack of all trades.
If he's going to play where he has been he needs to become better at controlling games and setting the tempo and I'm really not sure that comes naturally to him.
That said, I think he's been decent since the restart and the positive of Burno coming in and doing so well further forward is that it's made the picture for Pogba a lot clearer, it's make a success of that role in the two or bust.
If he's going to play where he has been he needs to become better at controlling games and setting the tempo and I'm really not sure that comes naturally to him.
That said, I think he's been decent since the restart and the positive of Burno coming in and doing so well further forward is that it's made the picture for Pogba a lot clearer, it's make a success of that role in the two or bust.
I would indeed. And as I keep saying, he’s not even come close to scoring in recent weeks.
This is the kind of nonsense that creates allegations of fanboys. Even in redcafe, only 19% of those who voted, thought he was our MOTM vs Seville.
Anyway, now let’s continue.
And how many of the other 80% had him in their top 3?
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