Good post.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 51
- Goals
- 9
- Assists
- 6
- Yellow cards
- 10
- Status
Good post.
Graeme Souness’s damning appraisal of him: The Scot, whose stellar career (mainly with Liverpool) makes him highly qualified to talk about accomplished midfield play, said: “Pogba may eventually be £100m worth, but right now I don’t see him anywhere near that. I see a young man who’s struggling to find his best position and best form in a team that’s struggling to find their best form.”
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ba-manchester-united-liverpool-premier-league
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ba-manchester-united-liverpool-premier-league
Poor yesterday game completely passed him by
Agree apart from the fact that he isn't actually playing well individually, and that has nothing to do with goals and assists. The game is passing him by and when hes on the ball in some games he use of the ball has been poor. In some its been good, hes not in the best of form at the minute but it will come. Yesterday vs pool he just wasn't in the game at all.
Im not writing him off and happy to give him time. However, that does not mean one cant point out that he is underperforming vis a vis expectations.
Given you have watched him a lot before he arrived, why do you the k he is having these issues right now?
Setting up the best chance of the game out of nothing in a game that ends 0-0 is a strange way to be a liability. I didn't think he was great but considering he was basically playing as a number 10 I didn't think he played badly either.
It's away at Anfield, so again I don't know what more you were expecting. I can only remember one time, ever, we've gone there and actually imposed ourselves on the game. It's nearly always a scrap and players very rarely stand out as having great games.
Make him watch Scholes/Keane videos for 24 hours straight.
hes categorically played shit, i'd honestly like to see him without Zlatan on the pitch, this bromance they have is wrecking the play. If he was in the mix with Jese/tony/rashy/ i think he will play with freedom - at the moment he looks like he is trying to please Zlatan and Zlatan only...
He did tbh, he let the midfielders run by him too easily at times, and when he got on the ball he wasted it plenty. He did produce a moment of quality though but overall he had a poor game and was one of the main reasons we couldn't provide much from an attacking sense.
This again, I called it in the 'baby elephant' thread. Expecting Pogba to play well or criticising him now amounts to 'you've never watched him before'. That second bit in bold isn't even worth a response.
This is how it's gone with Pogba to excuse his performances
- Blame his position
- Blame his team mates
- Blame settling in
Now those things have all more or less been catered to, we now move onto phase two of the denial game.
- Pretend Pogba has actually been playing well
- Declare to anyone that doesn't think he's been playing well that "They've never watched him before".
- State that Pogba in actual fact is basically not a good player, not a number *8 *10 *5 *7 and expecting him to "transform and dominate games" will lead to disappointment. But at the same time just to cover yourself state that eventually he will do just that.
With Pogba, what is annoying me isn't even his lack of goals, assists or domination of games, it's the fact he is getting simple things wrong, he is careless, I don't think it's too much to ask him to find a team mate from a pass standing 5 yards away. I don't think it's too much to ask him to head the ball into the net 5 yards away from goal from a free header (Stoke), He was fantastic for France the other night(ironically in a deeper role) so it's not a case of fitness, to me it looks like the big move has effected him mentally, like he needs time to adjust to it all, which you yourself stated, the problem with this is we signed him to make an impact now, not in 6 months or next season. This incessant need of people to say things like "He's not an Iniesta, he's not Scholes, etc etc", how about he just be Paul Pogba? Where's that little boy who joined Juventus a few years back and took to the league and club so impressively so quickly?
You were talking about him needing space and not be pressed to perform but that's basically nonsense because he's actually very good in those situations and has the attributes to deal with them (strength, quick feet, dribbling), you only have to look at his debut against Southampton to see that, they were on him like a rash but he was brushing people off, making fantastic passes and generally bossing the game. Then there's been games against Hull and Stoke this season where he has been given freedom and space, yet was poor. It's an endless cycle of excuses and creating these specific conditions that he can perform in, whilst trying to basically downplay his ability as a player and then at the same time keeping it safe and saying he'll come good. Bizarre really.
Yeah good post. I'm guilty of the bolded one! To be honest unlike a number on here, I'm not an expert (or want to be particularly) on the technical, positional or even match by match tactics of the game, so I tend to bow to those peoples better insight/knowledge to the game. I'm a long standing fan who just sees what he sees, gets excited when we get near the goal/score, appreciate free flowing fast paced football, quick pass and move, appreciate and enjoy a midfielder who bosses and dominates and really love to see strong skillful defenders stifling out the opposition attacks and launching counter their own attacks. Not to mention Dave flying through the air making incredible saves!
I suppose really I just expected things to happen more quickly with Pogba, a consistency of good play, which maybe unfair, but certainly gives me an understanding of my frustration with him at the moment. He might get better consistently, then again he might not. I suppose it's just a re-adjustment of my expectations that needs to happen. On top of that, I do think most people's expectations before the start of this season were pretty high considering we got Jose and four good signings (Bailey the stand out for me) - since this hasn't materialised I'm reckoning the frustration, taking into account the last three years, has sapped everyone's patience a bit!
He was supposed to let the midfielders run past him because he was playing as a no10 and it's quite difficult to do that or for the team to keep it's shape, if your forward players keep dropping back to stop people running past them!
Yet again, what the feck are you lot expecting from him. Because we paid a massive fee you want him to go to Anfield, play out of position, and win the game on his own? Most times he got the ball and didn't even have a passing option unless he beat a player first.
I wouldn't say he was great but this place is fecking ridiculous at times.
His stats from last night are absolutely woeful.
71% pass completion is horrendous. It might just be acceptable from a player who is creating a load of chances but he created absolutely nothing apart from that one good cross. Less said about his efforts without the ball the better.
Stats aside, I nearly lost some fingers by coming close to crushing my pint glass from his repeated habit of flicking the ball up in the air then losing the subsequent aerial duel to a midget like Coutinho or Henderson then falling on his arse. Fecking excruciating to watch.
71% pass completion is horrendous. It might just be acceptable from a player who is creating a load of chances but he created absolutely nothing apart from that one good cross. Less said about his efforts without the ball the better.
Stats aside, I nearly lost some fingers by coming close to crushing my pint glass from his repeated habit of flicking the ball up in the air then losing the subsequent aerial duel to a midget like Coutinho or Henderson then falling on his arse. Fecking excruciating to watch.
This better not all stem from the stupid idea people got in their heads about playing him instead of Rooney.
I bet it does.
I bet it does.
Jesus Christ. What is his position, exactly?
Left side Box-to-box.
It might be statistically bad because we were so deep that when he did have the ball, only Ibrahimovic was in front of him, leading to quite a few passing attempts in front of a player without the pace to meet those speculative passes.
Yeah that's it really. Most are aware of the fact he wasn't worth 89 million but he's still a fantastic player with a lot of potential and it's annoying seeing people try and downplay all of that to excuse his unimpressive start. But yeah I expected him to hit the ground running and might just need to re-adjust my expectations, I certainly didn't expect him to make less impact than all other signings(taking into account Mkhitariyan has barely played). I wouldn't even put Pogba in our top 5 best performing players this season which is something I again didn't expect. We should probably be a little more patient but that doesn't mean we can't analyse where he's going wrong at the moment, otherwise what is the point in this thread?
Here's his heat map. Blows my mind that a player who has played his entire career in central midfield would struggle to operate within the constraints of a role/system that blatantly gave him so much freedom to do whatever the feck he wants.
Something else that bothers me about people constantly looking to blame the manager for Pogba playing poorly is that it's obvious Mourinho is doing everything possible to get the best out of him. Constantly switching formation and personnel to try and find a formula that will get him to perform. After his frankly woeful lack of defensive nous against Stoke, last night involved dropping Mata and playing two other hard-working, tough-tacking, disciplined CMs in the same team (something loads of people on here have said is essential to get the best out of Pogba) and he was still absolutely terrible. Despite both Hererra and Fellaini both being bang on top of their game.
There's really not much more Mourinho (or anyone else) can do to get Pogba looking like the world class talent we thought we'd signed. It's all on him now. Nobody else left to blame.
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Isn't it easier to hit something slow compared to something moving fast?
Here's his heat map. Blows my mind that a player who has played his entire career in central midfield would struggle to operate within the constraints of a role/system that blatantly gave him so much freedom to do whatever the feck he wants.
I have been forced to defend Deschamps on this board because people can't accept the fact that Pogba is currently a nightmare for a manager who isn't managing Juventus. He is lost when he doesn't have to share the midfield with two other midfielders and even then he needs to play on the left to be really comfortable.
Pogba is incredible individually, he can creates magic out of nothing but when he isn't playing for Juventus, he is incredibly inconsistent and frustrating.
If a forward pass isn't on, then recycle posession to someone else and get forwards to support Ibra. That was his job after all.
71% isn't horrendous when you consider what his role was. It's not brilliant either mind...but have a watch of the game again and see how often he actually had someone to pass to without having to beat or hold off a player first...also look at how often Zlatan actually bothered to get in a position to help build an attack...because the answer is not very often at all.
I thought Zlatan, by an absolute mile, was our biggest problem last night, because he offered the sum total of feck all. At one point he managed to lose 4 aerial duels in a row, to HIMSELF. I don't even know how that's possible. It summed up his night and barring a freak moment we were never winning with him playing like that....but again it just seems that people pick a player and it has to be all that player regardless of what else goes on.
Pogba's had a couple of poor games, particularly the two Europa League ones, but he's improved our midfield immeasurably...even when he plays badly he's miles better than what we've had there at any point in recent years, because he is actually a presence there. Yet you come on here, and people want him playing AHEAD of the midfield, for some unknown reason, even though we have a surplus of players who can play there. Then when he does play ahead of the midfield, and is less effective, but as a plan it actually sort of works, people still aren't happy.
Before the game everyone says we'll struggle or get turned over. We go there and match them, and then suddenly people have decided that's not good enough because we didn't steamroll them or because Pogba didn't set up 50 chances or something. What kind of game were people expecting exactly? Has everyone wiped every single other game we've played at Anfield from their memory?
Just because Pogba cost loads of money doesn't mean he can just decide to run a game regardless of the fixture or how the team is set up. It's a fantasy to expect this. We used to go to Anfield with a front three of Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez, and with the best midfield and defence in the league (arguably Europe) behind them, and we'd still set up differently to other games, and they'd still all struggle and be limited to moments rather than good performances, and if we were lucky ONE of them might create A chance that might win the game.
All that's really changed about this fixture since is that our team has gotten shitter and Liverpool's has arguably become better.
The reason we got a creditable result was because our back four and keeper were superb, Hererra and Fellaini played like men possessed and Young/Rashford ran themselves into the ground helping out our full-backs.
The reason we created bugger all, though, was partly because Ibra was almost completely incapable of holding the ball up (which is terrible for someone so big/strong with such good technique) but also because Pogba played really badly. Zlatan wasn't his only option to pass the ball. As I said above, he didn't have to look to pass forwards every time he got on the ball. He could and should have played simple sideways or backwards passes when a more penetrative pass wasn't available. If nothing else, this would keep Liverpool guessing. Instead he constantly tried stupid flicks or tricks and dallied on the ball for far too long, before falling over. He was utterly predictable in his shitness. And even when he did try simple passes he was making a mess of them.
I agree with you that we've been far worse at Anfield plenty of times before and that, overall, we can be pleased with the performance and result. Trying to portray Ibra as the only United player who didn't perform is just wrong, though. Mourinho set us up to give Pogba all the freedom he could need to do what he's supposed to do. Add a bit of energy, drive and creativity to our central midfield unit, only for the player to completely fluff his lines.
Its not just this game though. I have watched him in 20 or so games (France, Juve and Man Utd) and struggle to see what the fuss is about. Of course I am not writing him off, I just assumed he was a genuine world class player by all the hype, yet I am always left feeling
He's not a general problem to the team. He was our best player only two games ago.
depends on the game to be honest. Some matches he has soo few touches of the ball, doesn't do enough off of it, shows little positional discipline and doesn't negate it through attacking contribution. so it changes game by game.
His biggest flaws are off the ball, definitely. It's why we need the likes of Herrera and another to combat this.
Pogba was shite last night, but he's had some very good games, too.
If and when the attack clicks (although I have my doubts about that) I'd expect him to start contributing with more goals and assists.
The onus is on Pogba to get that attack clicking. That's the main reason we signed him. Right now the only time our attack does click is when he's played well. Which has happened in just two of our 8 league games so far.
To be fair he could have had 2-3 goals against Stoke. He's getting there. Last night was a one off game in which our attacking players almost never do well so I'd prefer to ignore that. Mourinho also pointed out after the game that he wasn't expecting Liverpool to use two holding midfielders instead of the one and that meant Pogba had less space.
Partly, it is. But he isn't to blame for Young's inability to do anything progressive, Ibrahimovic being unable to control the ball or Mourinho's decision to play Rashford on the right wing. He's to blame for his own performance, which was shit.
I'm hoping that the likes of Martial and Mkhitaryan, or even Memphis, can get into the team and find some form, because our attack is still generally terrible.
In my eyes, Mourinho set it up just right, it was Pogba's lack of achieving what he was asked to do that was a major problem.
I was talking about when they were in front and he let them run past with the ball and then chased them back. He wasn't suppose to let them run past with the ball, he was part of the press.
And what do you mean what do we expect? He had a poor game and I simply said he had a poor game. We not allowed to say that now?
He was very poor last night.
So what is the excuse this morning then?
He said as much, in the interview after the game.
Not concerned at all with his form.
All players take a different amount of time to adapt to the tempo of the Prem. Pogba will adapt, because a player that talented will eventually find his feet and flourish.
We've already seem glimpses of his brilliance this season, and we'll see it on a more regular basis once he and the rest of the team settles in.
All players take a different amount of time to adapt to the tempo of the Prem. Pogba will adapt, because a player that talented will eventually find his feet and flourish.
We've already seem glimpses of his brilliance this season, and we'll see it on a more regular basis once he and the rest of the team settles in.
He's set match winning opportunities on a plate for Zlatan in each of our last two matches.
Should have had two match winning assists
Very well said.
Thats true. In fairness, that is true.
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