Mainoldo
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- Sep 17, 2004
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Only player we have that could have played on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. But yet he’s getting questioned about his Thursday night performance. Only in the Cafe.
He does if we keep the ball and has a Fred or Bruno along side him. But in this type of football he doesn’t no.
Toni Kroos doesn’t move an inch and is fine every week. Put Toni Kroos in this team we’ll say his legs are gone.
You keep saying three months of great form or him being our best player, but that simply wasn't the case.The state of this thread is the reason Pogba is thought of as he is. Theee months of being our best player. Forgotten in two minutes when he’s just coming back from injury and has need decent....not great. There’s so many who just can’t wait for him not to have a great game. He’s scrutinised beyond any player, bar Ronaldo in his first three seasons, I’ve ever known.
You’re pretty much bang on looking back through the games, Palace, Brighton, Spurs and Arsenal he was truly horrific. Looked well off the pace and was all over the place.
After that he was mostly used from the bench and was generally really good, there was also the Leipzig 5-0 game he started where he was fantastic and PSG away where he came off the bench and changed the game, give us control. Leipzig away when he came off the bench and nearly dragged us through. We really struggled without him in CL and with him fit and in form I’ve no doubt we’d be still in the competition.
The more you look at the games individually, actually the more you realise he’s had a handful of poor games at the start of the season where he clearly was nowhere near fit.
Ole has done a great job of taking Paul out and getting him fit, giving him cameos. Pogba has done a good job of staying professional and putting the work in to get fit during a season, and playing well when he’s been asked to come on.
Ive no doubt that the next time he has a poor game I’ll still hear the same people say he’s never played well for us, or he’s crap 95% of the time. You can literally look back through any season he’s been here and dispel that myth.
You keep saying three months of great form or him being our best player, but that simply wasn't the case.
He started the season in shit form (he'd only just got over Covid so I'm not blaming him), got dropped, got injured, then he only stayed fit for two months before he got injured again. Even in those two months he was fairly inconsistent in the second month, having some great games and some poor.
Of course an average/poor two games when he'd just come back from injury isn't the end of the world. Hopefully he'll get into top form for the end of the season.
Didn't we play the best football we've had in a long while after the lockdown last season with a midfield trio of Matic Pogba Bruno? Matic was playing out of his mind back then and made the midfield work. I reckon if we had someone perform at that level at CDM again, Bruno + Pogba would excelTo be fair if Fred handed in the performance of Mct or Pogba last night his thread would be lit up with fans totally tearing his game apart. People take it way easier on McT and Pogba from what I can see. We couldn’t even get the midfield basics right last night and that’s all we really need most of the time to get the ball up the pitch quick and to actually attempt to win it back when we lose it. It’s not rocket science. Bruno and Pogba don’t compliment each other on the pitch as well as they should which is a pity because they seem to be pally off the pitch. The more I see of them the less I think a new DM behind them is the answer.
Didn't we play the best football we've had in a long while after the lockdown last season with a midfield trio of Matic Pogba Bruno? Matic was playing out of his mind back then and made the midfield work. I reckon if we had someone perform at that level at CDM again, Bruno + Pogba would excel
Not really. It was only a couple of games against struggling teams (Sheffield United in poor form after lockdown and a couple of relegation battlers) where we really played well. As the season wore on our performances became quite average but we were doing enough to win most of the time, much the same as how we've looked most of this season. Our best midfield performance in the last 5-6 weeks of the season was against Sevilla where Fred played instead of Matic.Didn't we play the best football we've had in a long while after the lockdown last season with a midfield trio of Matic Pogba Bruno? Matic was playing out of his mind back then and made the midfield work. I reckon if we had someone perform at that level at CDM again, Bruno + Pogba would excel
I actually think Bruno and Pogba have good chemistry. Its clearly visible that Bruno feels less responsibility to always be the one trying to play intelligent passes when Pogba plays. I see Bruno occasionally ignore an obvious pass to James/Fred/Martial when we are in a losing position, it looks to me that this is because he doesn't trust them. I never notice this with Pogba, if anything he actively looks for Pogba as his second option if he can't find a forward pass into someone breaking the lines.I think it was an ok choice after an unprecedented mid season break. We didn’t really control games and we weren’t overly creative. We were always vulnerable on the counter. It also wasn’t enough to win the EL despite our embarrassment of riches. Matic has looked done ever since that Brighton assist. We lose when he plays. If Bruno and Pogba had any major chemistry it should be showing it against the likes of Granada let alone against the big teams. They look like they get in each other’s way in more games than they compliment each other in. Just a lot of running around and pointing. I just don’t see it anymore with them as a pair. They both want the ball in the same areas to really thrive. I think they kind of cancel each other out a bit even. I’m up for trying the DM behind but I’ll go out on a limb and say I don’t think there’ll be any major upturn in our play. I want it work but I don’t think it will.
Alot of people will be very quiet.