I will correct myself in that it isn't less than half as I don't want to appear disingenuous. I'll address the rest of your post point by point:
According to Transfermarkt if you exclude penalties:
16/17 - Eriksen 35 vs Pogba 14
17/18 - Eriksen 27 vs Pogba 18
18/19 - Eriksen 27 vs Pogba 19
Eriksen 89 (146 games) vs Pogba 51 (135 games)
Excluding penalties it's actually 38 more G+A or he's 75% more productive. If Pogba and Eriksen were starting a game tomorrow the former would have a 38% chance to contribute in this way compared with the latter 61%. Regarding the minutes played a lot of the difference is down to Pogba for several matches due to poor form, hardly a mitigating factor.
Pogba doesn't attempt set pieces because there's better set piece takers in the team. If we had a player with Eriksen's ability we'd absolutely benefit from his assists as he'd be by far our best set piece taker. The difference with penalties is that another player would comfortably match Pogba's conversion rate (66% last year).
I listed 29 because I did count penalties at first, which I later removed them for fairness. And it is a factor whether you like it or not. Minutes only benefit your stats. With more minutes, even with a worse rate of production, you improve your overall numbers because it's a counting stat. The same is true for penalties, and set pieces. Those are all counting stats that only add to your total. For example, just look at that period under Ole's first month. How many minutes were that and how many goals+assists did he get? Minutes are a chance for you to improve your stats and the more you have the easier it is to improve your stats. Such is the case with counting stats.
If Eriksen all of a sudden stopped taking corners and free kicks, his chance creation and assists and goal numbers go down. Because those things only benefit a player in regards to counting statistics.
You can't guarantee Eriksen would take those set pieces though can you? We've had freaking Jones take corners for us and same with Shaw. We've had Rashford take our freekicks despite him constantly being awful. There is no guarantee. And now that I think about it some more, Pogba probably doesn't get to take freekicks because it's better for him to try and get on the end of a pass to score. That's a goal scoring chance that Eriksen does not get, but as we know, it's easier to get an assist from freekicks than it is to head in a goal from a freekick for obvious reasons.
And even if he was better than Pogba at set pieces, if Pogba were to all of a sudden take them, you would be insane to argue that they wouldn't benefit his stats. They absolutely would because goals+assists are a counting stat. On the other hand, penalties are the one counting stat that can be easily brought up so that is why you have more people disregarding them. You don't see the same with freekicks.
This would be a really important factor if Pogba were contributing to the team in a defensive sense to a far greater degree than Eriksen. However this is not the case. In fact I'd argue that if Eriksen were allowed to vacate almost all defensive responsibilities ala Pogba, he would be far more effective in an attacking sense. Eriksen plays further forward but is also required to do more defensive work in terms of pressing and tracking back. The most important task given to both players in their roles is to create and score goals.
The reason we have to play Lingard and McTominay around Pogba (both of which are inefficient in an attacking sense) is to cover for his defensive frailties and the reason Pogba can't be trusted further forward is because he won't press as is required by the attacker players in our system.
Be serious here. This is ridiculous. Him offering up more defensively or not has no bearing on whether or not it's easier for him to create chances except that it might or might not tire him more. Position matters because you have less defenders in front of you and you get more opportunities to create something dangerous. That's a basic fact and you know it. A deeper midfielder has more responsibility to bring the ball out from the back, to take up deeper positions in order to keep some form of defensive shape, and more responsibility to supply attacking midfielders, wingers, strikers, and attacking fullbacks with passes. This is part of the reason why Chong has better goal+assist numbers than Gomes despite the fact that Gomes is more creative as a player.
Sure, you are correct about Lingard and McTominay, but Pogba is also needed to play next to McTominay because McTominay isn't good at bringing the ball out from the back. You can't just look at defense and then ignore other parts of the game. Pogba is our best distributor which is likely why Ole finds a need to play him deeper. If you play Pogba further forward, who do we have to give the ball to Pogba in more dangerous positions and to control the game through passing? Our midfielders are limited.
In fact, I actually took it easy on Eriksen by only looking at that context. I could just as easily have presented the fact that Pogba has played under more defensive managers than Eriksen has, and that Eriksen had better forwards in front of him, or that Eriksen had better ball playing centerbacks, or the fact that Eriksen had better midfield partners to control the game.
The biggest explanation in my view is because he's a much better player. He contributes more in an attacking sense as illustrated in this post. He contributes more in a defensive sense which is shown by his pressing and distance covered stats (as well as not giving the ball away as much). Likewise he is more versatile as acknowledged by your post.
Even if you disregard the stats I think you'd struggle to find non-United fans that would put Pogba in the same league as Eriksen. I can't think of a single way in which Pogba contributes to the team to a greater extent, apart from his counter-productive showboating ability.
No you did not illustrate that in your post or rather you did not prove that in your post. I illustrated that Eriksen is pretty much a Pogba level chance creator and benefits from playing in more advanced positions, having more minutes under his belt, and having opportunities that Pogba does not get regardless of whether or not he's better at them.
That is not arguable. It's a fact that Pogba plays deeper. It's a fact that Eriksen gets the chance to stack up his assist numbers through freekicks and corners, while Pogba doesn't just like Eriksen doesn't get to stack up his goal numbers through pens. It's a fact that Eriksen has played under a better performing manager with better teammates.
6
