What a performance, he looks worldclass for France, as always.
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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People here are mad. I've seen people value Varane at 60m but 30m for Pogba would be good business apparently.
I think its more people have the wrong idea of the type of player he is. He is more a jack of trades type of player.
Pogba's likely wage demands more or less rule him out of 99% of options though. That's the issue. He's essentially got Real Madrid, PSG and Juve who could probably take him off our hands. I don't think Bayern would go anywhere near him personally and we'd definitely not sell him to Chelsea, Liverpool or City.
He's the type of player who could leave us and then go on to win the ballon d'or. But yes for one reason or another, he's just not able to show his qualities with us consistently, so I do think it's best for both us and him if we sell him
Looks like he’s carrying his good form from December into the Euros
Playing against Bulgaria is a walk in the park for this French team. International football is well below the standard of the top leagues.
I wouldn't be surprised if he performs like that against Germany next week...
What about a straight swap for Verane? Would suit both parties.
Agreed, but the effort levels he put in seem much better than for United, he lingers also a lot less on the ball which makes him more "productive"(?).
To be fair I also felt he had more runs from team-mates into space to feed.
He loves it away from United on international duty. Same with Greizmann and Barca.
See this is what he's capable of when he's really on it. The problem is he doesn't play at this level enough even though he's clearly capable. He looked to be playing off the right in a lot of that video too. It's why I don't buy the position argument, he's capable of excelling at any role is his mind is in the right place.
Mentally he's a totally different player for the French NT. He plays with maturity and like he gives a damn about the shirt.
Ridiculous ability in that video though.
Highlights of a four year old game - fair play
Off I go again!
I'm not knocking Pogba by the way and I'm not one who wants him sold but performances at International level mean very little to me, especially in friendlies.
I don't think it has anything to do with us specifically. I think English football is very focused on pressure in the big games and most English teams don't play formations that allow a midfielder have the space and time Pogba like to have on the ball. He's not a very mobile player in or out of possession either. Put him in a less hectic environment and I think he'll shine more consistently.
Worst piece of business would be either giving him a new deal on £400-500k a week, or lose him for free for a second time.
Time for him to go and if we got £25-30m, happy days, time to invest in a proper functioning midfield.
Pogba is a square peg in a round hole for us, can't play DM because he's too deep to have an impact going forward and is poor defensively. Liverpool fully exploited Pogbas lack of defensive skills with TAA.
Do some sort of trade with Madrid for Varane.
You could put highlight clips of 70% of his performances from December on here. You’d still get the same responses. Every single positive is either turned into negative or dismissed. Hopefully this is the end game and he leaves and we can all move on, not that it will help us as a team, but with regards Pogba it’s just ridiculous. You’d believe reading this thread that he had the odd decent performance and a couple of good performances but mostly poor this season.
Off I go again!
This makes no sense, it should be the other way around.
Griezmann is a similar example. His style doesn't fit a patient possession playing side. His ability to anticipate, control and dribble the ball on the run is what makes Griezmann special. He can dribble in direct bursts, but he's not a flair player and without real explosiveness, he's not someone that can create space for himself from a dribble. His first touch allows him to do one twos and drive in tight spaces, but he's not creative. He's a better version of Dele Alli, that doesn't work with patient possession football.
Nope, we played Pogba LW to try and have an impact on our attack and pull thr strings. But Liverpool used that to their advantage and exploited Pogabas lack of defensive skills and TAA ran riot.
Well, I appreciate you were not ‘knocking’ - but there seemed to be some sort of will to ‘offer an explanation’ for a good performance (in this case, only Bulgaria) or the standard not being up to it etc. Of course, I expect as much from Dante, but I’m not sure why United fans would hurry to try and seek to diminish what was by all accounts, simply a good game from one of our players.Highlights of a four year old game - fair play
I'm not knocking Pogba by the way and I'm not one who wants him sold but performances at International level mean very little to me, especially in friendlies.
The game was 4 years old, yes, but you were shown one from a game that was less than 24 hours old and the implication of your post was that somehow, it doesn’t count.
I'm saying that given both players are very good offensively and less so defensively, it should have been us trying to exploit a RB's lack of defensive prowess, as opposed to lamenting our LW not defending well against their RB.
That sort of thinking reminds me of Jose being overly concerned with defence and playing a back 6 vs Liverpool.
Straight swap for Varane, and use whatever funds we have left after (if) we sign Sancho (and Lingardinho as a sweetner) to assemble a deal for Rice?
It was a friendly against Bulgaria. Forgive me for not fawning over the performance.
Um. Nope. That’s not true. Not even close to true.
And the other was too old. And the next will have only 10 men. And then it will be because the other team had player x injured, and so on.
What it was, was a great performance. Everyone is aware that it was a friendly. Didn’t stop excitement when Grealish plays well against some Austrians or Romanians etc. The rapid mitigation isn’t always necessary, unless, the desire is to ensure any praise is always tempered.
It should you're right but as we saw, Pogba didn't have such an impact but TAA did.
I’d take a straight swap for Varane at this point. He’s only going to run his contract down anyway.
Praise should always be tempered. It's a good player against poor opposition.
Some people will go overboard in their praise and some will use it as a stick to beat him with. I've already seen posts bemoan that he doesn't play like that for United. Against the same calibre of opposition I don't doubt that his performance would be similar in a United shirt. I've seen him play very well for United against much better opposition.
You seem to be arguing against a mindset I don't have btw. International performances and friendlies especially have never really been proof of anything in relation to how a player will perform at club level in my mind. Hell we've all seen players have stormers at a tournament only to never perform like that for any club.
This generation of french players love to play with each others, it's one of the thing that Deschamps brought. A club spirit within the national team.
It's also because he's treated as Paulie P for France and not Pandemic P as he is here.
In the past, he has been treated poorly(booed before the world cup) and been a scapegoat in France with a lot more focus than in the UK.
Come on, let’s not act as if you started watching football yesterday. You know full and well that football doesn’t work like ‘their RB is defensively weak, so therefore our LW should be dominating’. Their RB is also offensively excellent. Whichever one of them ends up having a more offensive game will almost always depend on the flow of the match. There is no way Trent dominates Pogba offensively in a game where we are all over Liverpool. We all know this, not sure what simplistic point you are trying to make.
If Liverpool are dominating United, Trent will likely run past Pogba, as Trent is better going forwards than backwards, and Pogba is better going forwards than backwards. The question is who will be able to go forward more? I very much doubt that if England and France meet and they were up against each other, Trent would be running past Pogba all game. If he did, England would get battered, as they will, in all likelihood, have far less control of the ball, and have a RB playing up top.
Which doesn’t fit with the “always world class for France” crap posted higher up in this thread.
Has Kante ever been treated poorly/booed/scapegoated by French fans? Didn’t think so.
Two things need be said. First Pogba is inherently inconsistent, so anyone suggesting that he is always very good is lying. The second point is that Pogba was treated poorly at a time where expectations were too high and the team as whole wasn't good, he was seen as a saviour more than simply a valuable member of the team. Kanté has had poor games for France too but the team that he has joined since 2016 has mainly been consistent and talented, Kanté has never been expected to be the saviour when something goes wrong people have the common sense to look at the context. What happened to Pogba also happened to Benzema but since 2018 he isn't a scapegoat, people have finally accepted the fact that he isn't Zidane or Platini.
So he is the French Ole?
I do remember this which is why I scoff when people suggest it has been plain sailing and the grass was always greener for the national team. I remember ex pros like Petit criticising him. You are right in that he suffered from the same issues he had at United in expecting him to carry the weight of the team on his shoulders. He isn't a Gerrard nor a Zidane. Once you realise that then you can relax a bit in your assessments of him. This France team seem more about the overall machine than world class individual talent in every position although they have some top players. They don't have the talent of Euro 2000, although I wonder what you think Deschamps would do today with the 2000 team.
Sell Pogba, De Gea, Lindelof, Mata and VDB.
Buy Rice, Ben White, Sancho and Grealish. Also, make Henderson first choice.
Soon enough we would be as good and successful as the English national team.
Buy Rice, Ben White, Sancho and Grealish. Also, make Henderson first choice.
Soon enough we would be as good and successful as the English national team.
Handily you can use the England NT to gague the level of Bulgaria
England put 10 past them in 2 games in Euro 2020 qualifying. They're League One level at best. Not sure why people get excited about performances against teams like this.
Pogba is an excellent player so is going to look pretty bloody good against that level of side.
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