The Rooney haters coming through to the pogba thread as well. Apparently his playing has to do with Rooney playing 
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Don't see what's weird about the Pogba v Rooney notion, I think it makes sense. As is it doesn't seem like we can play both in that central three and still be balanced.
I mentioned a 10 or a 4231, or a three man midfield.
His touch wasn't really bad though. He still shrugged off defenders and dribbled past them.
The Rooney haters coming through to the pogba thread as well. Apparently his playing has to do with Rooney playing
In fairness has a single quality player joined United and looked better playing with Rooney over the past 3/4 years? Or even come close to replicating previous form?
We played Ronaldo, left wing, right wing & striker. Keane played midfield, central half & rightback. Scholes, striker, box to box midfielder & holding midfielder. Giggs, left/right wing and box to box midfielder. OShea, right/left back, holding midfield and Keeper. But yet Pogba can only play 1 position in the team? Feck even Rooney (who you're being terribly disrespectful to) can play multiple roles. Players have to be flexible, end of story..
And yes Modric has played as a 10 during his career & I'd wager Kante would put in an energetic performance on the wing, but he's a far more limited player than Pogba.
Playing next to a holding midfielder should be well within Pogba's skill set and has has performed far better in that role previously. He was poor against City, regardless of whoever else was in the team, his price and profile would demand a better performance.
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Watched the first half again, he was our only player who was reliable under the pressure of city players. He kept the ball beat players, carried it. The problem was 1. He didn't get on the ball enough, he had a tendency to push up once we regained possession and then who ever got the ball would would lose it (Rooney, Mkhitaryan, lingered, Felliani) ad City would be in transition and the spaces he left infant of the defence is where KDB and Silva would cause havoc.
Fellaini was atrocious. Horrible positioning, horrible at spotting runners,, poor on the ball. He's good at clattering into players and looking like he's working hard and that's it.
Fellaini was atrocious. Horrible positioning, horrible at spotting runners,, poor on the ball. He's good at clattering into players and looking like he's working hard and that's it.
So Rooney is to blame for every players performances? Jeez some of you people will be blaming him for it raining today....
I'm not really a Fellaini fan but he was abandoned in that first half. There were times where he was left isolated against two or three City mids, a situation nobody is going to perform well in.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not. Even if Rooney was scoring own goals all day Pogba has only himself to blame for his poor showing. I have no doubt this will just be a rough wake up call for the Pog and he will work on his game to become the monster we all know he can but the posters blaming this on Rooney sound very childish.
He was abandoned I agree with you there but it looked like the tactic was whenever we won the ball Pogba was to start getting up the pitch wide left to provide an option in between the lines for the counter but the second he would go up City would win it back. That pressing at the start was relentless and our players could't hack it. even then he didn't do HIS job correctly. You can be well positioned and be let down by teammates etc. His positioning was awful and was the reason KDB was getting so much joy down our right at the start of the game then Nolito, but Felliani was all over the place from an individual standpoint. The whole team was set up incorrectly so the bulk of the blame goes to the manager, he got the personnel and tactics wrong bit some individual performances were shocking.
This might be odd to say, but I actually liked Rooney on the right in the 2nd half vs city. Played decently well and even ran win the ball effectively at times. I'd like to see us try
...........Ibra............
Martial Pogba Rooney
.....Herrera Fellaini....
Still prefer to see Mkhitaryan on the right once he's bedded in though
...........Ibra............
Martial Pogba Rooney
.....Herrera Fellaini....
Still prefer to see Mkhitaryan on the right once he's bedded in though
Does anyone have a clip of the Carragher analysis?
Wow Carragher actually suggesting Rooney could be benched. Never thought I'd hear an English pundit say that.
100% think that he is the first pundit to suggest it and I think his analysis is spot on. Neville is another puppet.
I wishe we had carsick from 5 years ago
Carrick Herrera and pogba in midfield
Rashford Zlatan Martial up too
Rooney wouldn't get near that side and rightly so.
I'd like to see us play Pogba on the left of midfield; with Herrera on the right and someone like Schneiderlin playing a reserved game behind the pair of them.
He needs that sort of security to thrive in the big games and he wont get it in a two with Fellaini with Rooney wandering about whenever he takes the notion.
He needs that sort of security to thrive in the big games and he wont get it in a two with Fellaini with Rooney wandering about whenever he takes the notion.
All players have to take some responsibility for their own performances but it's hardly a coincidence that almost all of the attacking players we've signed have struggled to form any kind of partnership with him. He plays terrible at Striker and suddenly he's a 10, plays awful at 10 and now he's a CM, stinks the place out at CM and people ask why he isn't playing up front or keeps getting moved.
Pogba was poor and his understanding of the role his main weakness but Rooney is not a major part of this side going forward and if it's a choice between 4-3-3 where we can get the best out of Pogba along with our other CM's or 4-2-3-1 regularly shifting Rooney around it's not a close decision.
Sorry but Pogba should be good enough to show his quality even if he plays with Tom Cleverely in midfield. For yesterday's game he is the only one who takes blame.
To be honest carra was angling that pogba was indisciplined and was too gung-ho in the first 20 mins .
It was more phil Neville that was saying pogba should be played in a 3 and not a 2 as defending his not his strong point
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Pogba is used to playing in a 3 man midfield .
For France , kante/sissoko and matuidi
Juve , Pirlo , marchisio .
It's impossible to play him in a 2 as we found out Saturday .
If we are paying £90 million for a dynamic box to box left channel midfielder are we suddenly going to play him as a holding midfielder so we can play Rooney in behind ibra .
I'm not bagging Rooney but to get the best out of pogba we need to play a system that will get the best out of him and that's either 4 3 3 or a diamond as carragher/ Neville alluded too.
I'm not sure your thoughts but ibra flanked by rashford one side and miki/martial on the other side would be my prefared 3 as we stand currently .
In my original post I was stating that either mourinho got it wrong as tactically lingaard and miki were supposed to play narrow allowing pogba to roam .
It's either that or Jose asked pogba to play his natural game as well as finding a starting spot for Rooney .
I can't see a manager as experienced as mourinho letting pogba do what he wants and leave fellaini with silva and kdb.
If we are going to change pogba to a holding disciplined 6 we should have saved our money and bought kante or matic.
Pogba should be played further forward. Imagine him picking up the ball and dribbling forward like he did that day, but 10-20 yards further up the field. But of course that can't happen because that's where Rooney plays.
Okay so the Giggs and Scholes examples were over the course of 15 or so seasons, Ronaldo switching wings and playing 'striker' were tactical changes to exploit their weakest defender as he was at the time the best attacker in the world and I don't remember Roy Keane playing at CB or RB except for when his legs were gone in 04/05 or whatever and we needed someone to step in.
Modric hasn't played outside of being a deep lying playmaker since he joined Madrid, either.
On the whole these 'top' players were put where they're best because of their ability and over the past 3-4 years RVP, Kagawa, Hernandez, Mata, Martial, Rashford, Mkhitaryan, Januzaj, Fellaini, Herrera and now Pogba find themselves playing in their 2nd-4th most favoured positions more often than not to accommodate him.
Pogba looked comfortable once Ander came on. They compliment each other and it gave Fellaini a better role in the game. That trio works.
This
Great post. Watching some of the clips back its clear to see that's what has been instructed by Jose. A lot of the times when he is getting ahead of the ball if the right pass is played we would have a 3 vs 4 situation against their back 4.
I was frustrated with pogba in the sense he was unable to over power city's midfield. He had a few nice moments on the ball. But at times he was being beaten in the air by much smaller players.
That's just Jose in normal Big Up Myself style.
I think a part of that is also Jose looking to make it clear that Pogba definitely rejected them and not the other way round.
I hope so....I had a sudden deja-vu of the Di Maria episode....
Ronaldo is Ronaldo.. just as Messi is Messi.
Hmm, I don't think all of this is true and the ones that are havent considered certain factors.
Firstly Roy Keane might have played centre back at United about 3 times, all during the 2001/2002 when Blanc, Brown and Silvestre were all over the place. Chelsea beat us 3-0 at Old Trafford and the experiment wasn't repeated too often. I don't ever remember him being at right back.
Scholes started his career as a striker but it wasn't a role he played in too much, once he reverted to a central midfielder on the occasions when he was deployed further up the field it was usually in the hole behind van Nistelrooy.
As for considering certain factors, Scholes dropped deeper because he no longer had the legs to play as a box to box, so he was basically forced into the role to prolong his career. He also had a peak Wayne Rooney ahead of him essentially covering every blade of grass he couldn't. Who does that for Pogba in this current set up?
You also have to consider that Paul Scholes as a box to box midfielder was in an era where everyone played with 4-4-2. If we played Scholes as a box to box midfielder in a 2 on Saturday against city the same problems would have been there.
Do you think we would have gotten the best out of Scholes between 1998 and 2004 if we asked him to pay as a disciplined central midfielder? His goals and assists number declined as he moved further back but that was in the twilight of his career, Pogba is young, we don't need to push him back because he's losing his legs. We need him to be the focal point of our attacks just as Scholes was between that period to get the goals and assists we know he's capable of.
Giggs right wing? must have happened about half a dozen times and I certainly don't remember many convincing performances. He played off the striker more often than right wing and did quite well in the role.
O'Shea was average in all of those positions, but he's probably the only player who could perform adequately in all of those roles regardless of the opposition/formation so I'll give you that. But then that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things because Pogba, Keane, Giggs, Scholes, Rooney are and were all far better players than John O'shea.
A little bit of over analysis going on I think.
Pogba was ok. Not great not dreadful. As a team, in the first 40 minutes we where not far off dreadful. Individually Jesse and Miki where dreadful.
Pogba made some excellent runs.
Fine margins win these big matches.
We conceded two dreadful goals.
However, we should have had a penalty and the opportunity to play against 10 men for half hour. The result could have been massively different and the opinion on individual performances would adjust on that. I was surprised to see Miki, shocked to see Lingaard. These changes effected how the midfield had been functioning. Fellaini and Pogba suffered most from that.
Pogba was ok. Not great not dreadful. As a team, in the first 40 minutes we where not far off dreadful. Individually Jesse and Miki where dreadful.
Pogba made some excellent runs.
Fine margins win these big matches.
We conceded two dreadful goals.
However, we should have had a penalty and the opportunity to play against 10 men for half hour. The result could have been massively different and the opinion on individual performances would adjust on that. I was surprised to see Miki, shocked to see Lingaard. These changes effected how the midfield had been functioning. Fellaini and Pogba suffered most from that.
I really like Carragher's analysis, he's turned into the gem in the Sky pundit crown.
He says what he thinks and isn't English/British biased.. or even Liverpool biased actually, fair dos to the squeaky voiced scouser.
He says what he thinks and isn't English/British biased.. or even Liverpool biased actually, fair dos to the squeaky voiced scouser.
Spot on. Honestly Miki and Lingaard were really bad against a team that could have beaten anyone based on that 40mins performance. Not a good combination when they were offering nothing defensively or outlet....
I don't like Pogba in that role but he had zero fault at both goals. In the first one we allow Kolarov to receive from the keeper, he plays a long ball and our centerbacks did the rest. The second goal didn't come from the fact of Pogba being out of position, the team recovered the balance and City played the ball back. That goal starts with their centerbacks playing the ball, with our team sitting at mid-height without adding pressure to them.
All their chances in the first half came in the same way, we were too conservative in terms of pressure and they just had to find the right pass. If you compare it with the way they pressed us there was a massive difference. Pogba played better or worse but he can't be now the responsible of everything, I can't buy that.
All their chances in the first half came in the same way, we were too conservative in terms of pressure and they just had to find the right pass. If you compare it with the way they pressed us there was a massive difference. Pogba played better or worse but he can't be now the responsible of everything, I can't buy that.
How well did these players play in those positions and for how long? did they do it in big games? nope. Scholes dropped further back with age but started off very advanced. Giggs didn't perform for me on the right. Its not a question of can they play there? its can they be as effective? remember Scholes LM for England? he had to retire at 28
I was joking with my mate who is a Liverpool fan because no doubt Rooney would've scored and we may well have gone on to win the game. such fine margins
To be fair, if you're wishing for the Carrick of five years ago, then the Rooney of five years ago would be the first man on your team sheet.
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