Erm yes he did? He tried to go round the player rather than releasing it instantly as an experienced international inside his own third of the pitch should know to do.
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On the ball when he's in the groove he's easily one of the best midfielders on the planet, a joy to watch at times, but off it his game-understanding is lower Championship level at best, and that's being generous.
No need to apologise, we both live to post another day.
Of course we are but he's still not above criticism. Some people on here I'm sure are bigger fans of his than the actual club. It's a joke.
I don't want him out of the team. I want him to stop making these stupid costly errors.
I mean, just look at this setup:
I have images of Fred and Matic experiencing the exact same thing when Pogba came off. How do you expect to have a midfield with this? Ole should have changed shape as soon as the first drinks break.
As an aside, this is why I prefer the 4-3-3 over our 4-2-3-1. It's a lot harder to be simply overrun with the former.
I have images of Fred and Matic experiencing the exact same thing when Pogba came off. How do you expect to have a midfield with this? Ole should have changed shape as soon as the first drinks break.
As an aside, this is why I prefer the 4-3-3 over our 4-2-3-1. It's a lot harder to be simply overrun with the former.
Absolutely, my fault falling for a troll.
We clearly tries to outrun the marker and loses the ball, its not like he got surprised by him he just bet himself of going past him and lost.
It really was amateurish from Ole. Pogba was expected to control the entire midfield alone with 3/4 players on him at all times.
It's particularly worrying that Ole's plan to counter their system wasn't to provide more midfield support, but to sub Pogba off and have Fred try and cope with 3 to 4 players alone. I bet Southampton couldn't believe their luck.
Well if you think that's gonna get you on my Christmas card list you've got another think coming
This is why I had the argument yesterday people have no concept of level headed discussion.
Not alot though. Probably what 5 times a season. Loads....
He has always struggled Vs pressing teams. This type of mistake is not rare when pressed.
Watching the replay it was clear he never turned his head and the marker only starts to press when Pogba actually turns his back to him so he never could have seen him coming.
Well if what you say is true that make its even worse, him asking for the ball in that area without even looking if there's an opponent is hugely irresponsable.
He has also been excellent against pressing teams.
I thought he and Bruno looked tired and that's the difference with having a deep squad. We could probably got away with one of the two but not both....
Well yes it was not great for a midfielder. And uncharacteristic before the last game...
I love Paul but he is just not the type of midfielder who could play well in and around our own box. He tends to lose concentration and doesn't have the defensive acumen to excel there. In games we are dominating possession, he is doing well in a two man midfield as he gets to play higher up the field. But in games such as these he ain't at his best.
I agree.
Pogba tends to lose concentration very easily (most in defensive areas). I don't know if he really wants to be here or not (maybe he's getting distracted by Madrid again), but a "top player" like him must improve that aspect of his game.
It is very easy to make Pogba the scapegoat, I know i certainly did after the Southampton game, but I read this article and then watched the game again and I realised that regardless of what we do, without Pogba, we are a mid table team and there is no hiding that especially if Bruno has a poor game as well.
This is an interesting read with regards to certain stats from the game
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/ole-gunnar-solskjaer-pressed-learn-22352682
This is an interesting read with regards to certain stats from the game
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/ole-gunnar-solskjaer-pressed-learn-22352682
I love Pogba just as much as anyone on here but does anyone else get really frustrated with his defensive play. He's strong, fast and has long legs to win the ball back but he constantly chooses the lazy option of fouling his man with overly physical barges or just pulling and grabbing his opponent. I can't count the number of times that if he was a bit more patient or willing to run after his man, he'd have a good chance of winning the ball back or forcing a turnover of possession. Instead he chooses to commit silly fouls.
It's why I'm not so sure if this double pivot of him and Matic will work long term. For France it made sense because they had a much better defence but also had Kante and Matuidi either side of him. I don't think he's able to do the defensive work required in that role for us over a whole season.
In games we control this isn't a problem but I fear when fans are back in stadiums and games become less one sided we will look very open when under pressure. I think we may need to bring Bruno a bit deeper to help out and sign a young and combative DM.
It's why I'm not so sure if this double pivot of him and Matic will work long term. For France it made sense because they had a much better defence but also had Kante and Matuidi either side of him. I don't think he's able to do the defensive work required in that role for us over a whole season.
In games we control this isn't a problem but I fear when fans are back in stadiums and games become less one sided we will look very open when under pressure. I think we may need to bring Bruno a bit deeper to help out and sign a young and combative DM.
We hid it well when we beat City home and away, won at Chelsea and twice scored 5 in the Europa League.
We hid it well when we beat City home and away, won at Chelsea and twice scored 5 in the Europa League.
Its all well and good saying we beat city and Chelsea but you can't deny that we gave up possession to play them on the counter attack and that is why we are 5th in the league because those same tactics do not work against the smaller teams with a low block, because now you have to control the game and we have no creativity whatsoever with McTominay and Fred.
Things got better when Bruno was signed but because he is always trying risky passes, it can always come back to haunt us if he has a bad day like on Monday and once that happens , we lose control of the midfield and invite pressure on our defence and the result is a last minute equaliser like against Southampton.
With Pogba in our midfield we have control because he is miles ahead of any of our midfielders in dictating and controlling the flow of our game, he recovers the ball more than our other midfielders, he is the strongest in possession, he is our best runner/dribbler in midfield and he is the best at passing between the lines or switching the play , if you take that away you have Mctominay always trying to run forward and losing possession as his passing is non existent, you have Fred always busy, but very loose with the ball and you always get the feeling that a stronger more physical opponent will always take the ball off him.
Those two fill me with no confidence whatsoever and that is actually why I am leaning towards signing either a player like Van der Beek or Thiago for our midfield because I have seen enough in Mctominay and Fred to tell me that they can never be more than squad players, I believe James Garner and Dylan Levitt will be better players than both and I hope they get more game time or at least sent on loan. Van der Beek or Thiago can then challenge Pogba and Bruno for the No.8 and No10 spots and thats quality all around.
That's some serious downplaying of the contribution Fred and McTominay made against two of our biggest rivals when we were depleted and our confidence was on the floor, and they didn't have Rashford, Martial and Greenwood flying ahead of them either. They both stepped up to the plate big style, and neither deserve to be out of the team now even if Paul when he can be bothered is a far superior player to both.
I thought we were over phrases like "when he can be bothered"?
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I don't think I'm downplaying their contribution, I'm saying that they work best when we play counter attacking football which is what we have done most of the season and it has been very effective when we play against top 4-6 opposition, but when we play against "inferior opposition", we have the ball a lot longer and because the opposition is playing in a low block, there will not be any opportunity to counter attack and I'd say we have lost a few games against these so called "inferior Opponents" because we have not been able to break them down and there has been no opportunity to counter attack, so whilst I commend McTominay and Fred for filling in admirably seeing as Pogba has basically been out injured for most of the season, our most effective period began after the signing of Bruno, because finally we got some creativity which is something McTominay and Fred could never give us (Notable mention to Lingard and Andreas for a lack of creativity as well) .
Our best period though has been with Pogba and Bruno on the pitch at the same time after the restart and you can see in every single game after Pogba or Bruno or both have been substituted, our performance has gone totally flat and the most notable example is the woeful FA Cup game against Norwich which Pogba did not start, If we can't beat Norwich in 90 minutes with Pogba not playing, then we have a major problem because if Pogba and Bruno have to play every game for us to keep up with Liverpool and City then we might as well concede that we are playing for third place again next season because they obviously can't play every game and useful as they might be I'd rather not have to depend on McTominay or Fred if we have to win a game, they are squad players and should not really be starting because you can see the blatant lack of quality like in that Norwich game.
Their contributions in those games during that period were massive but they were games where expectations were low.
What I see from McTom & Fred is generally their limitations stick out the lesser the opposition when they’re asked to impose more on play by creating something.
You obviously have reservations with Pogba [“when he can be bothered”, When McTom & Fred have stinkers is it don’t to their attitude?] but it’s not like McTom & Fred were pulling up trees before Bruno rocked up either.
For the level we want to attain we shouldn’t be romanticising a decent run for a few players; both are decent squad options who have the ability to raise their games.
His teammates show more support than a number of fans do; I know who I believe regarding his attitude in/around the dressing room.
The fact that Ole didn't change a thing during the drinks break made me genuinely start to reconsider my desire for him to keep going. I mean, I know nothing about top level football coaching, but it was painfully obvious how effective that setup was, and how we did nothing to address it. For some bizarre reason Fernandes stayed all the way up the pitch, near Martial, thus meaning there was absolutely no option to go through the middle for us to play around the press.
I'm not sure if maybe Ole expected the players to sort it (they didn't) but he's the damn manager, he has to change it at the drinks break. Nothing changed, and it was even more negligent to come up with no change at half time.
Anyway, Pogba gonna Pogba. For all the times he loses the ball like on Monday, 3 other times he'll dance out of that press, have the whole field in front of him and create a good chance. It's what you get with him, and we should be fine with it tbh.
No you can still use it as long as you throw a compliment in as well.
I'm pretty sure he did. I'm pretty sure we would have had a game plan to deal with their high press whenever we are playing out from the back - a game plan that didn't include Pogba losing the ball on the edge of our box. I'm his biggest fan but he had a poor game by his standards. It happens.
We were very leggy and slow playing out from the back, exactly what they would have been hoping for. At times we played it quicker and got through their press quite easily and were away running straight at their defence. Ole would have expected us to handle it better than we did.
I remember seeing him talking to them at the drinks break, I'm sure he would have been urging them to play it out quicker and get it over or around the press more quickly.
We haven't played anybody of note since the restart, so let's hold fire on whether Pogba, Fernandes and Matic is such an upgrade on McTominay , Fernandes and Fred who had Martial learning how to play centre-forward again, Jesse or Andreas, and Dan the nearly Man playing ahead of them.
Nobody played well at Norwich in the Cup.
Yeah. Out setup was intended for this purpose. We didn't win the midfield battle because we didn't want a battle, we wanted to avoid a midfield battle, bypass their midfield and give our attackers more space to operate in. I don't think our tactics always work, but we usually create chances galore every game and we did so against Southampton too. Way more than they did. We probably should have replaced Pogba with McTominay and Bruno with Fred soon as we got the second goal, to get more of a defensive midfield and make it more of a physical battle for possession higher up the pitch. Sometimes the players just doesn't seem to adjust quickly against different types of opponents. A bit of complacency kicks in, but I think the tactics were fine. As I said, we created way more chances than they did and if we had gotten another goal they probably would have crumbled. They should have played with 10 men for the majority of the game, yet we're the ones who had to finish the game with a handicap. I think people read too much into it, tactics were fine, in a different scenario where we went more defensive and still lost, I'd be disappointed. We're an attacking side again and that feels good.
This isn't planned. Matic regularly started in a position ahead of the CBs, but would fall in beside them or next to our fullback in order to receive the ball. People keep saying how cool he is under pressure. He's not. He avoids it like the plague. He should be making himself available ahead of the defense. His insistence of dropping deep to find space means we have fewer passing options which makes it significantly easier to press.
Reverting to a sort of 3 at the back when we are higher up the pitch is perfectly fine, and it's when we see Matic's talent on the ball shine through. But that hasn't been the problem.
Our most important signing next season should be the DM position. We need someone mobile and comfortable enough to receive the ball in tight positions.
From some of our fans maybe but they were still representing Manchester United football club where the expectations are higher, and by quite some distance, than at any football club in England. They didn't get a free pass(pardon the pun), they still had to perform, and did, when we needed them most.
There was clear difference in how we got out of the back after the first drinks break. Before the break, both Pogba and Matic were trying to turn against the press (usually it works when press in one v one player), but because Southampton were pressing with multiple numbers on a player and quite incessantly, it was causing us troubles. After the break, most of the passes Pogba and Matic did when they got the ball from the defense were one touch even if it was just a safe pass. We were cycling the one touch pass either from CBs to fullbacks then to Pogba/Matic or from CBs to Pogba/Matic to fullbacks and back to Pogba/Matic. With this, Southampton's press wasn't that effective after the break in the first half and we seemed to have more control of the game.
But in the second half after about 5-10 min, for whatever reason we were unable to continue that effectively.
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Pogba's never played in a double pivot in his career.
McTominay and Fred are a double pivot: they alternate who sits and who presses, depending on whether the ball comes down the left (which triggers Fred to press) or the right (which triggers McTominay press).
Pogba and Matic are a basic midfield two - a central midfielder next to a holding player. One very clearly sits behind the other for the whole game.
It's might seem like a pedantic point on terminology, but it makes a big difference to the way we shape up and play at both ends of the pitch. For instance, Ole rarely goes with one-for-one swaps in his starting lineups. The pairings balance each other to the extent that each one (Pogba/Matic or MCTominay/Fred) generally comes as a package deal.
Whenever Pogba is picked next to someone else, the other person is the sitter and PP plays as the link to the front 4. It's not a symmetrical setup like a double pivot would be.
(Sorry if any of this sounds like I'm picking on you. I don't mean it that way)
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When you’re ready to move on from the hyperbole we can have a proper debate. We all know where United ‘should’ be & 27% possession in a win isn’t it.
Fred was representing Manchester United at home to Citeh when we lost 3-1 was he not bothered? Or were expectations not important that night cause it wasn’t Pogba? He was also present for the 0-2 loss against Burnley.
I like Fred & McTom but saying they deserve a place in the team over Pogba based on an exceptional run vs their regular level is infact giving them ‘a free pass’.
Pogba may not be the answer in the long run but for ‘Manchester United football club where the expectations are higher, and by quite some distance, than at any football club in England.’ you can’t honestly think Fred & McTom are the answer long term either.
So when Pogba plays badly, he can’t be bothered & when Fred & McTom play badly it’s everyone else’s fault?
I respect your posts on here but your blind spot with Pogba is huge.
All true, however for large parts of this season our first choice midfield was Fred and Matic. Matic played as the holding midfielder, and Fred played box to box.
But because of the reason you mentioned, although we have 4 midfielders for the 2 positions, I think its unbalanced and it makes it difficult to gauge what kind of signing we need in midfield.
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