Imagine, for a moment, a player who over the course of a campaign could make more tackles than Virgil Van Dijk, complete more dribbles than Sadio Mane, win possession more times than Fernandinho, head more balls than Harry Kane, create more chances than Leroy Sane and succeed in more duels than N’Golo Kante.
It sounds implausible, doesn’t it? A character confected by some Xbox teenager on Fifa, perhaps. But – and you know where this is going – those comparatives were all true of a certain Manchester United player last season. While these particular statistics have been cherry-picked to illustrate a point, the breadth of Paul Pogba’s talent means he ranks highly across a remarkable range of measures.
Ahead of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat by Crystal Palace, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was asked whether the focus on Pogba provokes any irritation. “It doesn’t frustrate me, we expect a lot from him,” said Solskjaer. “But we know we can’t get Roy Keane, Veron, Scholes, Giggs, Cantona in one player. It’s hard. But he is a top, top player.”
We saw the two sides of Pogba again on Saturday. He conceded possession unnecessarily in midfield for Patrick van Aanholt’s injury-time winner. But, minutes earlier, he had delivered the stimulus to seemingly avert defeat, tackling Wilfried Zaha and providing a quick pass forwards to catch Palace out of shape.
Solskjaer said of Pogba after the match: “I thought, as (with) the rest of the team, he grew in the game, and he wins the ball really well for our goal. He played some great passes. We know that he’s gonna want the ball all the time. He knows that. Yeah he lost the ball, but he’ll lose the ball again, and he’ll try again. No problem with that.”
It was the best and worst of Pogba in a matter of moments. But the bad, as Solskjaer alluded, is borne from the good. Studying his performance against Palace in detail was to appreciate the duty he feels to make things happen in a team short on technique in tight spaces. This can link to his mistakes.
That is not to absolve Pogba. He didn’t need to linger on the ball searching for the perfect pass, inviting Christian Benteke’s tackle, having already turned out of trouble brilliantly. His subsequent failure to launch a recovery run recalled to mind the acid observation of Roy Keane, one of Solskjaer’s comparisons. “He’s a problem. You’ve got to run back when you’re defending,” Keane said in April.
United did have six in cover, however, and David De Gea should not be letting shots such as Van Aanholt’s squirm through his body at the near post.
Palace’s centre forwards, Jordan Ayew and then Benteke from 75 minutes onwards, were told to make sure Pogba could not come deep and spray the ball around. So Pogba instead played higher up, as his pass map from the match illustrates. The closer to Palace’s box, the greater ratio of yellow lines, which correspond to passes missed, illustrating the difficulty of finding that killer incision.
There was one cross-field pass swept majestically to Ashley Young in the 47th minute that resulted in a Dan James shot blocked by Van Aanholt. And his whipped ball to Anthony Martial from the right after tackling Zaha meant that United had men over on the left for James to score.
Seconds before that he had seen a sharp, straight pass intercepted by Zaha — the desperation of United’s situation hastening an attempt through a congested path.
Sometimes it was his team-mates who erred. In the 50th minute Pogba fizzed a ball into Jesse Lingard, who miscontrolled. Pogba could not hide his frustration. There was another moment when Martial misread Pogba’s intentions and dropped deep when the ball was over the top. On other occasions United’s front three were too static.
Team-mates contributed at times. Rashford found Luke Shaw in the box with a clever pass and Scott McTominay’s burst into the area drew the foul which won United their penalty. But from the start it was primarily Pogba who set about trying to prise apart what everybody knew would be a deep Palace defence. And to this end, after a troubling week, there was particular support from the stands.
Before kick-off fans in the Stretford End went through with their promise of expressing solidarity with a player racially abused on Twitter after his penalty miss against Wolves.
“One Paul Pogba,” went up, as it did on three other occasions in the first half. Nameer Alsaadawi, a 55-year-old fan from Sweden, was one singing. He had a Pogba shirt on too.
“Everyone can make a mistake,” he told The Athletic beforehand. “He can afford that because he does so much for the team. I wear this shirt with more pride today.”
Mark Bennett, 27, and Paul Hobson, 34, two friends and lifelong United supporters, chanted likewise.
“He is the best player we’ve got,” said Bennett. “It comes with price tag and all the fanfare, there is that expectation.”
Hobson added: “Because of his name and who he plays for there will be that stick. We’re not the best team in the world right now but we are still the most talked about. That is why Pogba gets criticism. He is put on a different pedestal. It is about getting behind someone we need to.”
Pogba himself tweeted in response to the abuse he suffered following that penalty miss. Alongside a picture of him holding his son while standing next to artwork depicting his father Fassou Antoine and Martin Luther King, Pogba wrote: “My ancestors and my parents suffered for my generation to be free today, to work, to take the bus, to play football. Racist insults are ignorance and can only make me stronger and motivate me to fight for the next generation.”
Clearly, events from last week’s draw at Molineux were in play in the 14th minute when Pogba let Rashford take a free-kick 30 yards out. It went wide. Same again in the 23rd minute from the edge of the box. Rashford put this one just over. Having ceded twice, Pogba took the third free-kick from 20 yards and went closer still, curling the ball slightly too high.
There was only ever going to be one penalty-taker when the moment came. Pogba did not even get involved in the conversation because the decision had been made before kick-off. Did the added focus increase the pressure ever so marginally on Rashford though, as he struck his shot against the post?
Pogba had the most touches by any player on the pitch, with 100, and seemed the most likely catalyst for a breakthrough. There were one-twos with Rashford in the first and second half which nearly worked but Palace frequently crowded him in numbers. In the eighth minute he managed to fend off Luka Milivojevic, Cheikhou Kouyate and Ayew in one go to find Martial. Seven minutes later Kouyate and Ayew launched a tandem attack but Pogba kept hold long enough to release Lingard, who burst away to win a foul.
Pogba also won five headers (only outdone by Harry Maguire’s seven) and made two tackles (only bettered by Kouyate’s three), statistics which bring us back to the start of this piece and an explanation of a bold statement.
Here goes: last season Pogba made 30 tackles (Van Dijk: 28), 60 dribbles (Mane: 51), won possession 218 times (Fernandinho: 162), headed 120 balls (Kane: 117), created 55 chances (Sane: 40), and won 234 duels (Kante: 146). Clearly there are reasons for each little victory, but the point remains: he can do a lot of different things on a pitch. More importantly, this is what he is asked to do by a United team not blessed in midfield or with world-class talent.
Pogba played in the Champions League final in 2015 with Juventus. He had Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal alongside him. Pogba won the World Cup with France last year. He had Kante next to him. Criticism is justified but it needs to be measured. He cannot be everything at once.
United tried to sign Christian Erikssen this summer, a player who would have added genuine technical quality to support Pogba, and at one stage a deal appeared possible. But Erikssen wanted to hold out for Real Madrid and United declined to press ahead on other options. That looks a mistake, which might need to be addressed in January.
There will be more questions about Pogba’s own future come the new year, too. He would have 18 months left on his current contract then. And, while he kept his counsel this summer once United had set his price at £150 million and it became clear Real did not have the funds, that could alter if the club have more afternoons like Saturday.
