Pogba liked Solskjaer, and got on with replacement Ralf Rangnick too. The pair had a productive meeting early on; Rangnick was straight with Pogba and they talked football.
The only occasion when a touch of tension came was when Rangnick left Pogba out of the line-up for the 1-0 defeat at
Everton in April by reminding him his foot was sore, as if by way of explanation. Pogba had been playing through the issue without complaint, so the detail seemed superfluous to Rangnick’s decision to drop him. Ironically, Pogba had to be sent on in the first half of that game when
Fred suffered an injury.
Rangnick valued Pogba’s efforts to mediate aspects of the dressing room. He was also one of the players to command major respect from
Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo said he wished he had played with Pogba at Real Madrid, because of the variety and quality of his passing. Pogba lobbied Ronaldo to be
more constructive with feedback for younger players, such as when
Jadon Sancho failed to square the ball when through against
Brighton in February.
At the final whistle of that 2-0 win, in which Ronaldo scored the opening goal, Pogba gave encouragement to centre-back
Harry Maguire whose final touch had been to clear the ball into the stands. “We have to believe in ourselves,” Pogba said. “You’re an £80 million player for a reason.”
On another occasion, when a meeting of some players with Rangnick about form turned unexpectedly
into a targeted tactical discussion, Pogba went back later to apologise to United’s interim manager for the way things had gone.