That chance from Ibrahimovic backheel is the contender for goal of the season if that went in. Beautifully worked chance
Baby elephant is growing quickly in the room
- Thread starter sammsky1
- Start date
- Status
He's 23yrs old, no preseason and started playing 10 days after his return. Those are not excuses but facts.
Pogba and Rooney
Who said you are an idiot?
I thought he's done alright to be honest =/ Added physical presence and a bit of a cavalier spirit to our midfield, which is what we bought him for.
This thread is ridiculous. For the past couple of seasons the vast majority of posters on here have bemoaned the lack of ambition, reluctance to shoot, sideways and backwards passing and inability to carry the ball forward.
Pogba does all of these things and guess what, that means he is also more likely to lose possession! So far, he has scored once and hit the bar twice. Yes he has wasted good chances but he is getting in the positions to miss them which cant be said of the majority of our midfielders.
Pogba also should have a couple of assists to his name but for simple misses from Zlatan when played clean through (Leicester and Stoke)
Soon, the shots that are hitting the bar and going just wide will start going in. His through balls will start being converted and before long he will prove why we paid £90m. The talent is obvious surely?
Pogba does all of these things and guess what, that means he is also more likely to lose possession! So far, he has scored once and hit the bar twice. Yes he has wasted good chances but he is getting in the positions to miss them which cant be said of the majority of our midfielders.
Pogba also should have a couple of assists to his name but for simple misses from Zlatan when played clean through (Leicester and Stoke)
Soon, the shots that are hitting the bar and going just wide will start going in. His through balls will start being converted and before long he will prove why we paid £90m. The talent is obvious surely?
Read the actual posts you're responding to. We're saying it was a good performance which isn't being recognised as such because he didn't score the goals. But he hit the bar, so that's how fine the margin is between a performance being criticised and getting the praise which it actually deserved.
As for missing chances, there wasn't a midfielder in our squad last season who would be creating or getting himself into the position for any of these chances, especially the headers. He was unlucky not to actually score against Stoke but looking to the rest of the season, it's obviously promising that he's getting them.
EDIT: Or what Lentwood said in the post above, basically.
This. Get a grip people!
Brilliant.
Pogba and Rooney
And I thought I'd already stumbled on the worst thread I'd see today, evidently not, back to the Ronaldo on a boat thread!
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/nightmare-vacation-on-ronaldos-boat.422411/
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/nightmare-vacation-on-ronaldos-boat.422411/
To get the best out of Pogba you only have to look at his best performances for Juventus which came as part of a three man midfield with a ball winner (Vidal or Khediera) and a deep lying playmaker (Pirlo or Marchisio) and seeing as Pogba is the most expensive player in the world maybe we should build the team around him, why spend £89 million on a player if he isn't your number one player ?
We've got players in Herrera, Schneiderlin and Carrick who whilst not being on the same level as Vidal, Pirlo in his prime, Khediera or Marchisio are the type of players that saw Pogba play the best he's ever played and a three man midfield releases Pogba of a lot of the defensive shackles that are currently placed on him as part of a two man midfield.
Real Madrid are built around Ronaldo and Bale, Barca are built around their front trio and then look at Bayern, Juve, City and PSG and you see the same pattern of those clubs building the team tactically around their most expensive and best players to get the best from them yet we don't.
If Rashford and Martial are to play as one of the wide forwards then they need to play as part of a front trio because they're having to play defensively to cover the two man midfield especially if Rooney is playing as the 10, playing a 10 also means Zlatan and the 10 getting in each other's way and space which is also space that Pogba naturally likes to also get in.
We've got players in Herrera, Schneiderlin and Carrick who whilst not being on the same level as Vidal, Pirlo in his prime, Khediera or Marchisio are the type of players that saw Pogba play the best he's ever played and a three man midfield releases Pogba of a lot of the defensive shackles that are currently placed on him as part of a two man midfield.
Real Madrid are built around Ronaldo and Bale, Barca are built around their front trio and then look at Bayern, Juve, City and PSG and you see the same pattern of those clubs building the team tactically around their most expensive and best players to get the best from them yet we don't.
If Rashford and Martial are to play as one of the wide forwards then they need to play as part of a front trio because they're having to play defensively to cover the two man midfield especially if Rooney is playing as the 10, playing a 10 also means Zlatan and the 10 getting in each other's way and space which is also space that Pogba naturally likes to also get in.
That just shows how crap people are in judging performances. As though keeping that header a few inches lower somehow retrospectively changes his contribution up until that point.
Yes, it's good that he's a threat in the air. Yes, it's good that he made that run for Lingard to put on a plate for him. Yes, it's good that he adjusted to a heavy touch and manager to slip Ibra through in the 2nd minute. These are all good moments (if really want to put a positive spin on missed chances anyway!) but good moments don't make a good performance. Not in central midfield anyway. His overall game was bang average, at best. Repeatedly dispossessed, dwelling on the ball too long, sloppy passing, positionally all over the place (not in a good way) and basically showing very little of what we want/need from the most high profile central midfield signing in the history of this club.
Shit happens, though. Hopefully there's a lot more to come but trying to turn a mediocre performance into a good one because of a few decent moments is just silly.
If creating/scoring goals is all you seem to want to judge a central midfielder by, why not just play a different attacking player in there?
Three in midfield. Hererra deep, with Mata and Mikhi ahead of him. Oodles of goals and assists right there. More than Pogba has ever, or will ever, achieve. What's wrong with this line-up?
Or, from my perspective, as though putting that header a few inches too high somehow cancels out the fact that he was playing well and making lots of chances.
Seriously? There's the Ibra pass in the 2nd minute. Can you name another?
Nah, he was poor to average, his misses only added to the fact it wasn't a good enough performance, it wasn't a case of being unlucky and the misses distorted a good performance. It's the complete opposite. I would describe his performance as "careless".
I'm not going to give Pogba credit for "getting into positions". That's the bare minimum that's expected. I expect him to be in those positions week in week out influencing our play, it's what he does after that where he will be judged. We bought him to be an attacking threat from midfield. He deserves praise should he produce moments from these positions not for getting into them and fluffing his lines.
Which of his previous teams did he run games for? Juve or the French NT? It's absolutely bizarre to "expect" him to run games for us seeing as he's never run games for any of his previous teams. Unless he develops that side of his game massively, he's never going to run games for us anytime soon either.
Never going to run games for us. Gotcha. Needs at least one other midfielder to do all his defensive work for him. Has never scored more than 8 goals in a season and only once hit double figures in assists.
So what should we be expecting from him, exactly?
So what should we be expecting from him, exactly?
Yep, putting it on a massive fecking plate for Ibra in the 2nd minute was the first one. Then he set Mata up for his chip effort. He also provided the pass for Ibra's shot from in the box in the second half. And he may not have scored his own chances but he created a number of them. I mean, a midfielder threatening to score headers is an entirely new category of threat from us (incredibly, given that we have Fellaini) thanks to him.
And goals shouldn't even be the requirement for his position anyway, which was kind of my original point. If he'd put those chances in, people would be raving, but in fact the good things about this performance weren't really to do with our attack. We dominated possession, territory and chances, and that's because Pogba and Herrera were in control of the midfield. A goal against the run of play and our inability to finish multiple chances doesn't change that. Watch his highlights, he wins the ball and strides away again and again and again.
I'm not arguing he's playing like £90m yet (there's arguably no such thing), but those high expectations are making people overly negative about what has actually been a pretty good start to his season. There's too much emphasis on goals, because people are used to record-breaking transfers being for players who can basically be judged on their goal return. But we all agreed with Mourinho when he said that wasn't going to be the case with Pogba, remember?
I'm not sure, what were you expecting from him? Looking back at his threads after we signed him, you seem at least as excited as everyone else. Were you wrong to be excited, or is it possible this little crisis is an overreaction to a decent first handful of games from a new player under a new manager?
I was expecting him to a dominant, well-rounded central midfielder. I wasn't expecting him to be at his best immediately but I thought he'd settle quicker than the likes of Gundogan because he was "coming home". I've absolutely not lost hope in him becoming the player I hope he'll become. It's still very early days. I'm just a bit bemused by people who seem to be trying to spin what we saw against Stoke into being a good performance. Or saying we shouldn't expect him to run games or trying to blame everyone else in the team when he doesn't perform (it was all Fellaini's fault mid-week, when I think he arguably played better than he did on Sunday!) If standards really are that low then we haven't a hope in hell of winning the league any time soon.
Fellaini's scored his share of headers. Darren Fletcher scored two headers in a single game against City ffs. Let's not pretend getting on the end of a few crosses makes him the second coming...
Yeah I'm baffled by all this, basically being told to lower all expectations in regards to Pogba. I know his price was inflated but he's still a top player yet there's many describing his performances as "very good" and to "not expect more" , pretty sure someone said we should expect him to lose possession a lot aswell. Madness.
Either these have never seen Pogba before or they're playing ignorance and failing to address the elephant in the room as the op suggested. The answer is the latter.
Weve got two monstrous games coming up and I'm expecting Pail Pogba to play a major part in them and if he doesn't, questions will be rightfully asked.
Gerrard like midfielder? Gerrard was Liverpool's main penalty taker and scored 10 or more goals only 4 times in his career.
David Silva was AM his entire career and scored more than 10 goals only once. Then there is Iniesta who wasn't midfield controller as it was Xavi and then Biscuits and he never scored more than 10 goals in his career.
Pogba has played only 4 seasons as a professional footballer. Scored 8 league goals twice and 7 goals once in the league. Even at ManUtd he is very lucky not to score more than 1 goal for us.He isn't a tempo setter but he is involved a lot in the game. Only Henderson and Cazorla played more passes per game than Pogba in the league.
I'm not criticising Pogba for his lack of goals. Just taking issue with the idea that being a goal threat is an acceptable contribution in any given game. Which is why nobody would ever judge Silva, Busquets or Iniesta on goals alone.
Gerrard's an interesting one. I've heard that comparison made a few times and I've always rated Gerrard as a player, despite his failings. I do hope that Pogba could be a more rounded player, though. Liverpool only really became a top team when he stopped playing in central midfield and became a support striker/wide attacker.
At least one other midfielder - and preferably two.
I wonder whether this was what SAF saw when he decided to let him go. Sorry, not let him go, but elected not to play him, and then didnt fight sufficiently hard to make him stay. Maybe we didnt have the very specific conditions required for him to thrive. Maybe the whole thing was a lot more rational than any of us understood at the time.
The problem is nobody really watched him before he joined us. He is the ultimate youtube player. Occasionally he can do almost everything - dribbling, passing, shooting, tricks, tackles. His highlights are incredible. At the same time he was never the player, who gave Juventus structure.
KdB is less flashy, but more productive and better at running the show, while costing a lot less. Pogba never was and never will be a 90m player. That doesn't mean that he is bad or that we shouldn't have signed him, but if you expect "90m" performances from him....you'll end up being disappointed.
He did okay so far; there is a lot of room to improve but he'll always drift out of games or lose the ball.
Last but not least: A lot has been written about our performance against Stoke. 9/10 times we win. That said, Stoke are absolutely horrible. They are completely dysfunctional, have no defence and a lot of cnuts on the field, who only show up twice a season. Looking good against Stoke is almost like Depay playing well against midtjylland. It is no benchmark and certainly no reason for praise, when he doesn't decide the match.
KdB is less flashy, but more productive and better at running the show, while costing a lot less. Pogba never was and never will be a 90m player. That doesn't mean that he is bad or that we shouldn't have signed him, but if you expect "90m" performances from him....you'll end up being disappointed.
He did okay so far; there is a lot of room to improve but he'll always drift out of games or lose the ball.
Last but not least: A lot has been written about our performance against Stoke. 9/10 times we win. That said, Stoke are absolutely horrible. They are completely dysfunctional, have no defence and a lot of cnuts on the field, who only show up twice a season. Looking good against Stoke is almost like Depay playing well against midtjylland. It is no benchmark and certainly no reason for praise, when he doesn't decide the match.
Like you said Pogba is very interesting player. He is neither a pure CM nor pure AM, sort of hybrid player.
His passing range is superb but defensive awareness is very poor. For me he should play in midfield 3, that gives balance to the team too.
Well, exactly. And this goes beyond Pogba but the comments about how our overall team performance was actually really impressive does seem to miss the point. This is a fixture that even our vangled toothlessness last season didn't stop us serving up feast of attacking football. And with more than just the one goal to show for it. Spurs, City and Crystal Palace have all put four past them already this season and I suspect they all missed at least as many chances as we did in each of those games. We won't get many better opportunities to puff up our stats as a team and as inviduals, so it's a damning indictment of the peformance of creative players like Pogba that our only assist in this game came from a Stoke defender!
Given that it's about 50% of the point of him, he actually score headers fairly rarely. Pogba's only scored one so far but he's winning a lot more headers in the box from corners per game than Fellaini does. And with him it's just an added extra.
I'm only making the comparison to last season's team, not in general, to assess Pogba's value added so far. I'm not making out he's some unstoppable heading machine, just that compared to last season it's pretty much a new type of goal threat from us. So the Fletcher example doesn't really relate.
Come on you're being a bit tricky there by using the 10 figure. For a start you're only using league figures. Gerrard scored more than 20 in total for three seasons. That's a brilliant goal scoring return for a midfielder.
Given the type of player Pogba is they are the type of figures he should be aiming for.
Last edited:
It came off his shoulder. He got the header all wrong, it wasn't bad luck. If anything he was lucky the ball went towards goal never mind hitting the bar.
I don't want that too sound overly critical, missed chances happen. However let's not almost praise someone for completely messing up a pretty simple header.
At the same age Gerrard scored 7 goals.
Yeah I was about to amend my post. I don't expect Pogba to be doing that right now but as he reaches his prime in a couple of years that should be the level of his contribution.
The point of the post though was to highlight the slight distortion of Gerrard goals scoring record.
I'll wait and see what he develops into before I start coming up with expected returns.
If he's running games like Keane, he'll have a pass on goal output from me.
Agree if that's the kind of player he turns out to be.
If you're referring to the header in the last minutes, it wasn't a header. It should have been a header but I think it came off his shoulder.
Easy chances my arse. United were plain unlucky on the day. If Grant didn't have an FM type superday, even with his misses Pogba would have had 4 assists. On another day he will have those 4 assists and a hatrick.
Jaysus, ever feel like you've slipped into a parallel universe?
What four saves did Grant make as a result of chances created by Pogba? I can think of the Ibra chance and (if we're being incredibly generous) the Mata chip. What else?
- Status