He could have 10 good performances in a row. He will eventually have a bad one. Maybe a bad two or three. Seen so many good runs erased by 2 or 3 below par games, then all of a sudden, the consensus is that he has had a poor season.
Regardless of his own performances, Pogba will not be fully rated as a success here until the team is successful. He’s not billed as one of the supporting cast, he’s the headline act, so if we had won the league over the last 3 years, he’d be viewed much differently, with the same performances. But we aren’t as good as the others, and he is the player meant to make us as good/better than them. From that position, you can only begin to focus on the negatives in a player’s game. And you will find them, because they exist for all players. If Liverpool were 4th, Bobby no goals wouldn’t be good enough, Henderson wouldn’t be talented enough etc. These will be players they need to improve upon. With the same performances.
I think rating performances and players are larger contextual. Let Pogba leave this summer and Bruno get given the main billing to get us back to the top of the league. People will start noticing all the flicks that don’t come off , the passes that go astray etc. Narrative is key. He’s done largely the same good and bad things as Pogba does since he’s come in, but the feeling is very different. Admittedly, he works a lot harder off the ball too. But on it, I see a lot of loose passes, a lot of very good deliveries, ams a few penalties scored. Minus the pressing, Pogba could easily turn out the same performances to far lesser review.
In football, you are rated as much for your expectations I think than for your actual performances. Which isn’t necessarily wrong, although in Pogba’s case, it hasn’t done him many favours, as his expectations are simply whether alone or with help from his friends, to get United back to the top. In that sense, he’s certainly been a failure. Christian Eriksen was viewed differently, and the mood in this country was that he was probably a better midfielder for Spurs than PP was for us. He wasn’t though, didn’t produce as good of numbers, his own inconsistency overlooked etc. Simply because Spurs are not demanded for win the league.