Just pointing randomly and then switching off doesn't absolve him of blame. He didn't check where Bailly actually was when he pointed, and he just let Lookman go without checking he was being picked up. The goal was on Pogba far more than it was Bailly. It's a flaw he has and he's done it dozens of times where he expects somebody else to pick a man up and just lets them run off him. Luckily he redeemed himself in the rest of the game.
6
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 42
- Goals
- 6
- Assists
- 6
- Yellow cards
- 9
- Status
Yes...he’s never played well before this month
Why would you expect a central midfielder to chase a forward through the defensive line?
Bailly and maguire had nothing to do at that point, as a team you need to remain fluid and switched on, our centre backs were not at that stage.
Trying to blame Pogba in this situation is just stupid.
So if a defender makes a run, you expect a forward to run with him until he stops running? Have you ever played football?
Pogba goes across to cover Lookman and tracks him until he runs onto the back line. At that point you don’t go with the run. Watch any goal that breaks an offside trap and a player will have made a run from somewhere. Had AWB been in line with the rest of the defence Lookman would have been offside, but it was a perfectly timed run and pass. It happens.
What a goal that was, nothing better in football then seeing that! Let's hope this is not just one of his 4-5 good games period and he plays like this until end the season.
I like when you talk like this once a year, enjoy i while it lasts.
The latter for me.
Seems to be working harder as well. He had me terrified yesterday being on a yellow card as there were a couple of moments where he was getting proper stuck in trying to win the ball back in the second half, but to be fair he won the ball instead of giving away the foul every time.
Last edited:
Sure, once in a while when he feels like it. Just like now probably.
Which is why it's all rather frustrating. You know there's a player there, you just don't see it for much of the season.
Jeez, people are really blaming Pogba for the goal? Football is a team play and there are zones, he let the player run and showed to Bailly. He wouldn´ have been there fast enough with him. We tried to play an offside trap there and biggest culprit is definitely AWB there who always sleeps thinking he´s got recovery speed but you can´t play with a player like that being on a different wavelength.
Pogba has done great lately. I really think people underestimate how unfit payers can return after serious injury, he was out for 3 month? or more? then he caught covid. Sure thing his motivation is another thing but right now heis fitness looks to his best in a long while, doesn´t look leggy anymore. He won´t be a dynamic playersimply because his body consitution but he contributes defensively very well. Luckilly we have marathon runner Fred to cover there. Hopefully we dn´t play Paul with Matic much since those ames have always looked so slow and open in the back unless we played an extra midfielder.
I don't, but if you're tracking a man back into defence you pass him off properly. A quick wave in the direction of the defenders then leaving him to run on goal is not doing that. Lookman is Pogba's man until a defender picks him up, which is not going to happen a split second after Pogba calls for it. Bailly should have read it better and been ready but that's a minor factor.
Yes i have played football, semi professionally. As a centre back. Have you?
See above. Pogba should have stayed with Lookman until he knows a defender has picked him up.
He was mediocre except for the goal, he could have prevented their goal if he took responsibility too. That said he scored a decisive beauty in one of those awkward tight games against lesser sides that we always had in title races under Fergie in the winter. Most of the team was under par so I think you have to give Pogba his due here as he produced the significant moment.
After so many years scraping for 4th spot it feels good to grind out wins like this in a title run.
Yea it’s the latter.
Goal aside, his performance last night was Bryan Robson-esque.
He followed the line of the ball up and down that field for all 94 minutes. A real talismanic performance. I know he scored a cracker, but Pogba's best bits last night came when he was off the ball. An unusually perfect disciplined performance from Paul, aside from his early late tackle that brought him a deserved yellow..
It must be said; Ole Gunnar's man-management appears flawless to me. He truly is doing a stellar job as manager of our football club.
He followed the line of the ball up and down that field for all 94 minutes. A real talismanic performance. I know he scored a cracker, but Pogba's best bits last night came when he was off the ball. An unusually perfect disciplined performance from Paul, aside from his early late tackle that brought him a deserved yellow..
It must be said; Ole Gunnar's man-management appears flawless to me. He truly is doing a stellar job as manager of our football club.
The big thing is his reaction to poor pieces of play, he is now immediately hunting the ball down, hungry for defensive work and playing like a leader. He give the ball away plenty, last night and at Anfield but the application was always there. His talent level has never been the issue, few have doubted how gifted he is, it has what has made him so frustrating, everyone knew he had the potential to be and do so much more than he was, there were too many excuses made in places like this for why he couldn't perform, when ultimately it was on Pogba.
Great goal, ran hard the whole game, maybe could have done better with their goal but I put that more down to crazy positioning from the CB's, especially Maguire wandering.
Great goal, ran hard the whole game, maybe could have done better with their goal but I put that more down to crazy positioning from the CB's, especially Maguire wandering.
Why is it burning people to just praise without backhanded compliments for one game ? You know, it's ok to be positive for one night. It almost feels like they hated that he scored the winner.
It's great to have 2 world class midfielders. That's is so valuable.
Feels good, i hope he can keep it up.
Feels good, i hope he can keep it up.
Not as a centre back no. As a winger yes. So you’re saying that as a CB playing an offside trap and not being ready and not reading a situation better is only a minor factor?
To be fair in this situation I think there isn’t an issue if AWB is in line with the other defenders, we clearly played for offside.
You’re wrong blaming Pogba here but it’s this level of scrutiny he gets held to that is a massive part of the problem he’s had since he came back here and why he’d be better off leaving.
Check the VOD, he actually looked and pointed.
We were 5v3 or something like that, what was the point of Paul tracking that man when Bailly was in a much better position and was also not covering anyone?
I hope Geoff Shreaves or one of the others ask him why he's working harder the last month then he's done in the previous 4 years. Imagine been that good and going through the motions for the last 4 seasons.
Its great to see him playing well and lets hope he can continue to do so but it doesn't take a genius to work out he's working harder then he has done.
Its great to see him playing well and lets hope he can continue to do so but it doesn't take a genius to work out he's working harder then he has done.
The Premier League turns everyone into a clogger eventually. Even Pep has fallen.
Oh the lengths to some people go to defend Pogba. Probably one of the luckiest footballers around. His lapdog consistently insults united (and don't think that happens without Pogba's consent), Pogba himself has mostly been average to above average in his time at United. Now he scores couple of goals and all of a sudden all is well.
Yes, he is required to produce the consistency of KDB. At some point, we should stop making excuses for him.
Yes, he is required to produce the consistency of KDB. At some point, we should stop making excuses for him.
Utter fiction. Perhaps you could accuse him of this in the first half of Mourinho's final season and he was obviously not fit at the start of this one, but at every other point in his Man Utd career, Pogba has applied himself willingly. The stats prove it!
When you pass a player off you make sure you pass them off to somebody. Until you do that they stay your responsibility. Pogba didn't do that, he only gestured to the defence and didn't wait to make sure he had been acknowledged, immediately dropping off Lookman and giving him a yard of space. Maybe Lookman gets credit for waiting for the confusion of the pass off to make his run, maybe it was luck. Should Bailly and Maguire have read it better yes, but that still doesn't excuse Pogba being the main factor.
Any player who did that would get the same scrutiny. Matic used to drive me mad for letting his men go, and Solksjaer too considering he dropped him, but he has turned it around. Pogba isn't getting singled out here.
He’s been one of our better players lately. Will always get the stick here incomparable to few of our other players, but he’s one of main reasons we got as many points as we did in last weeks. I’d be very happy if he stayed and continued his form.
Pogba is a sulker. Not getting in the team. Sulk. Get agent to say sht. Team not doing well or in a team thats sht (which has been most of his time here) sulk. He will still train well but his performances suffer cos his head is off. But in a winning team, a team going for the world cup, a team winning trophies etc Pogba is a player you want. He thrives on it. He needs the structure around him and to be loved. Its annoying because he should be the one driving the team when we are down. But he's just not that type of person. Fernandes is and hopefully we have one or two others now (leaders) that help drive players on which is what Pogba needs.
This wouldn't even be a discussion if the player in question wasn't called Pogba.
Sometimes I wonder if our fanbase even deserves players like these.
You’re probably a little too emotionally invested to assess the player properly.
Go through that season individually.....first game of the season at home to Leicester he came back early with about a weeks training and was outstanding. Off the top of my head he was brilliant in games vs Burnley away and Newcastle at home. Obviously there were more than that, but even the season Jose scapegoated him, it’s a myth that he didn’t play well or went through the motions.
Guaranteed it spoiled the winner for some on here.
He is world class. Shame that we will lose him
Fiction.
As for the rest, people need to stop this ‘because we’re playing well’, or ‘because we’re a winning team’ stuff. He’s played no small part in making us become that team this season, he hasn’t just been witnessing it.
This isn’t the first time he’s played well, and if we had been top in some of the other seasons, a lot of his performances would probably be remembered a lot differently today I suspect.
In fairness to Paul Pogba (and I am not his biggest fan), it wasn't Paul Pogba that was a mess the past four years. Manchester United have been a mess for the past four years.
He was courted by every major club in Europe and Real Madrid wanted to sign him when we got him in 2016. He came to us because he was sold a dream of being the main face of a new dawn for United. Unfortunately that new dawn began with Jose Mourinho who wouldn't even fecking move to our city to manage our football club and it all went pear-shaped; not just for Mouirnho, not just for Pogba - but for Manchester United as a whole.
All of the blame goes on Ed Woodward who was too eager for a league title, to desperate. He was hiring and firing managers, desperate to win something. He wasn't thinking how a Manchester United CEO should think - which is long-term.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer changed Ed Woodward's mind. We are now planning 4/5 years ahead and not just concentrating on the present. All of our signings this summer are super exciting; most of whom won't be in our first team for the next couple of years.
The new dawn has only begun in the past year - and everyone - for the first time since Sir Alex retired - in our dressing-room is singing from the same hymn sheet -Pogba and all...
Been class since Mino's statement. Credit to him. We will do well if he can keep this up.
What do you get a signed agreement? You’re also ignoring the offside trap obviously to continue your narrative, so whatever. AWB is at fault here because the back line are pushing up to play offside. In any case it happens. People score goals and break offside traps identically to this regularly. A player makes a run, the back four push up in a line but it doesn’t come off because one defender doesn’t hold the line.
Are we back to pretending this is the first time he's played well?
Quite right. Football is a team game. Defenders cannot just defend. Same for midfield and forwards.
It was just lazy.
Amazing that you start post with that sentence and then you write all that. You are type of fans who look only direct goals and assists from midfielder.
Pogba is our main playmaker lately. Every attack starts with him and he is running the show. Something like Modric or Xavi did for their clubs.
Pogba is playing on position where he is the one who dictates tempo of our play. Same was yesterday.
Those people probably spent the remainder of the match hoping and praying for a Pogba mistake leading to dropped points.
Correction.
He can be so called world class.
But to be considered that, he cannot pick and choose when he is going to perform.
Apart from his brilliant goal, it was a pretty average performance.
Yes...he’s never played well before this month
Problem is according to Pogba fanbois he never plays poorly. Truth is somewhere in the middle.
At the moment, he looks like a guy who's been told to put in a shift so he has more options to leave too in the summer.
- Status