Agree with this. Certainly needs to be one of the two outcomes.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 27
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 9
- Yellow cards
- 9
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
Agree with this. Certainly needs to be one of the two outcomes.
Led to the corner we scored from I think
I wanted him to leave under the right circumstances but we are worse off than last year. We just have to bite the bullet and give him his 500k.
What a weird bar to set though. Doesn’t play well against Liverpool, who the feck has done consistently for us in the past 5 years? Sell every last member of the squad by that measure.
Think he has missed a large amount of games against them through injury.
FA Cup last year he played very well against them I thought.
When you cost 90m then these are the games you expect him to show up. KDB does for City in nearly all their biggest games. This is what we need him to do more of.
Atletico X 2, City, Spurs, Liverpool.
Let's see how he does. Hopefully he continues this good form. I'm just pointing out Boro, Burnley, Southampton, Brighton and Leeds aren't exactly top class teams are they?
We can praise him for good games, which we have done, but the next 4/5 weeks is where the season will be decided for us. CL and top 4 clashes.
With Pogba in the team, it does raise our probability of producing those magical moments when needed. I think it's time we saw the bigger picture. We'd be a weaker side without him no question, especially as we are building around a system.
Consistency can only be used as a metric if everyone else in the team is equally consistent, something no United player can claim.
Consistency can only be used as a metric if everyone else in the team is equally consistent, something no United player can claim.
I’m a bit distraught as I think someone may have slipped me some hallucinogens. I read some posts that said Pogba isn’t athletic and I can’t think of any other explanation. Scary stuff 
i love it when people with blatant agendas are caught red handed
Calm your tits. I thought he was the one losing the ball straight after kick off, the commentator said it was him. If it was Bruno, then my bad. Stream wasn't perfect so couldn't clearly see who it was. But it looked like Pogba was the one giving the ball away straight after kick off after they scored.
And spare me the agenda bs, I said he was fantastic the first 45, as he was.
Please sign that contract. We need him to stay.
He was the best player or at least top 2 player in the first half. Some ridiculous skill and played with so much flair. Love watching Pogba in full flow, makes the game look so easy but with some silky skill moves.
If I thought he wanted to be here and he'd actually play on a regular basis without injury I'd be really keen to keep him. I'm not convinced either of these things are true.
Fantastic yesterday. Why can’t he play like this consistently?
Looked very good. Still think he could be more energetic without the ball.
Overall though I have to say that I enjoy watching him play football. He's just so entertaining to watch.
Overall though I have to say that I enjoy watching him play football. He's just so entertaining to watch.
His price, just like Maguire's, just like Sancho's are things we really need stop to take into account when reviewing their performances. It's not their fault the club was desperate to get them thus inflated their valuation. Fans talk about these things like they've integral parts in the process of purchasing those players.
It did. He also done a very similar move at the start of the second half but on the right hand side
To be fair other than Liverpool he has regularly played well v City often when the rest of the team has been poor, Spurs, in Europe and if you want to throw in Chelsea and Arsenal too.
Liverpool is a strange one, especially at Anfield. Juanfield aside I can’t think of too many decent team performances, let alone individual performances since both are linked. I’m thinking way back to Scholes, Giggs, Rooney, Ronaldo etc and can’t think of many (any) outstanding individual performances at anfield bar Mata one time.
I seem to remember this type of narrative last season as well, it’s all well and good against Burnley, Villa, Fulham etc.....then he went on to play well at Liverpool, Spurs, Milan etc and by the end of the season we were back to....One good game in five
We really don't. That would be a terrible move.
It's not his fault - and no one is blaming him for us paying £89m.
But his performances are now going to be against that very top benchmark as a result. Not just as a result of that but also because he himself would be put against the standards of the best midfielders in the world. Players of that ilk tend to be far less patchy in form.
I'm really pleased with Pogba of late but there is a clear trend of certain posters coming out with huge Pogba boners after games he's essentially built for. I still remember our reverse fixture vs Leeds where I think he got a few assists and the same sorts of posts were made. People forget he was drifting out of games just a couple fixtures ago.
I think it’s clear that we are a better team with Pogba on the pitch. Much more suspect defensively, however what he gives us in creativity, passing and ball distribution more than makes up for his suspect defensive positional awareness and lapses of concentration.
Who in our team wasn't?
Players of that ilk (price range) rarely perform better. If you look at the top 10-15 most expensive players ever, you won't find more successes than disappointments.
The expectation will always be a function of the money spent but it is something that will never make fully sense to me, specially if you know the kinda player you bought in the first place (that applies for every big fee signing).
I will always believe that no one has had more expectations placed on his shoulders than Pogba at Utd whereas he was never that type of player
Is that relevant? Every player has been scrutinized for it so why is it an issue that Pogba is too, in the Pogba performances thread? Bruno has over the top scrutinized by all, Maguire / Shaw vilified, Fred vilified, McTominay scrutinized, Ronaldo scrutinized, Rashford scrutinized.
There seems to be a bizarre take by some that Pogba is being overly scrutinized when he isn't. But putting in decent performances here and there doesn't warrant 500k or us shitting our pants when he leaves. He wasn't one of our more consistent players and never was. The peak consistency was around a 3 month period 2 years ago. That's about it.
That’s a great point I hadn’t thought of before. I’m sure the data gonks at well run clubs have done analyses on the hit rates of the various different price ranges. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they’ve found that the £80m+ range is best avoided. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the sweet spot is right about where Liverpool have been shopping these last few years.
By players of his ilk I mean top midfielders that he himself would be benchmarked against. These midfielders may have different strengths and attributes to their game but ultimately have the same duties he does. By his "ilk" I do not mean his price range. We were parking price range the minute you said its not fair to judge him on that. So I'm talking about how he is meant to be in the band of the top midfielders of the game over the past 3-4 years , be in KDB/Modric/Thiago/Henderson/Wjinaldum etc.
All these players have different skillsets among different variations of midfield but the 'consistent" feature among them all is their individual performances are consistent. We were begging for Pogba to 1) be under different managers 2) be in different positions and 3) have different peers. Then Bruno came in and just put a couple of those excuses to bed with at least 18 months of solid consistency - so maybe he belongs in the above list too.
Baller.
None of them were playing in dysfunctional midfield as it has been the Case at United and no their individual performances aren't always consistent either , it just that we as United's supporters hardly scrutinize or follow them regularly unlike our players.
Last season Harry Maguire maintained a good stretch of consistency in the second half of the season, weirdly. To the extent we were all worried when he was out for Villareal. Bruno was consistent for almost 2 straight seasons, Shaw was consistent over the course of the whole season. Pogba was injured but I don't think he was any more or less than consistent in general than his peers.
My point isn't that he's a bad player though, or that he's toxic anymore (he certainly was when his agent piped up because that's his mouthpiece like it or not). It's more that he's doing well now, still drifting out of some games but we shouldn't panic and offer him shit loads of money to stay because he's not remotely worth that.
Your post literally talks about posters having "Pogba boners" after games where he plays well, and my question is when should you have a boner for a player, if not after they play well? You make it sound as if he shouldn't be getting praise, he's been balling ffs, how could you not celebrate that.
And you also have the opposite where even after he plays well you have people who say "this is expected, this is the minimum" "wish he could do this every week", until you take a step back and realise that its repeated pretty much every week.
In fact, if you look at this season alone and the games he's played, he's been very consistent - you could probably name a few games where he's been below a 7/10 but probably with an exception from De Gea, Lindelof, Varane and maybe Bruno - I don't think anyone in our squad has been as consistent over the course of the season. Now yes, he's been injured for 3/4 months - but even around this time last year when he returned from injury, he was also playing at this level - by then Bruno & Rashford were clearly overplayed, we were in rotten form, then Pogba came back and we went on a run, he got us over the line against AC Milan and into the Europa final, and was playing well week in week out.
That's consistency.
So actually if you take a look at the last 12 months of games he's played, I'm struggling to see where he's been just "decent", especially when compared to the rest of our squad which is what brought about my comment. There are maybe 4/5 players who've operated at a level above average in our squad, mostly everyone has fallen well below expectation and Pogba isn't one of them, unless the expectation is that he should be both DM & AM at the same time.
Well the first condition is irrelevant in that if he didn’t want to be here then he doesn’t sign anyway.
No I don't - please don't change what I'm saying.
My posts clearly insinuates that praise is fine but some go over the top. Such as one post earlier saying we should offer him 500k a week.
Are you saying after a good game those posts are reasonable? Fine - thats you.
He hasn't been playing well every single week. He's barely come back from injury and was drifting out of our last game? Are you making up things I said now? I'm confused.
How many games has he played in since returning from injury? Do you know the difference between form and consistency? As I said, he's more than capable of going on around 7 games of solid form - the problem is it's patchy after that. Always been the case with him.
I don't think you know what is being debated here. I'm not saying Pogba hasn't been good for us in the last 12 months. I'm saying 1) he's injured half the time and 2) when he's fit over prolonged periods the form gets patchy. He has for whatever reason (there are multiple being used for him) been unable to deliver prolonged consistency for Manchester United by way of individual performances. This is by his standards. I have seen Luke Shaw put in a solid season of consistency at least, and I have never seen that from Pogba. I've seen Bruno done it for 2 years, I've seen Rashford do it for around 18 months, and I've seen Martial do it for a solid season / season and a half.
No Maguire wasn't consistent for prolonged period he grew into the season after rather indifferent start and you are being highly disingenuous if you believe Bruno has been consistent for for good two seasons straight his numbers were good but he has been rather poor for quite some time and just getting back to some decent form now.
Just to add I don't think we should resign Pogba simply because of his regular injuries let him go and revamp our midfield completely by buying two midfielders who complement eachother and our current options as well and not repeat the same mistakes which we did with Pogba.
I didn't say Maguire started the season well - I agree he far from good from the off. But, he did have prolonged consistency last year after settling in though - and was solid in the second half of the season or more.
We can agree to disagree on Bruno - he was off form for a long period, I know that. But prior to that he was single hindedly saving Ole's job and was superb for a long time - the half season he joined from Jan and the entire season after.
I agree with your last line, not because I'm anti-Pogba but because I don't see the economic worth in keeping him, and I feel we have to sacrifice too much by way of midfield styles of play to cater for both him and Bruno. It can lead to us getting overrun in big games and if faced between them two I'd choose Bruno.
I would say the consistent theme is more that their teams are consistent performers tbh. It’s far easier to play well when your team is better than it’s opposition 9/10 games and the dominant force. It is a platform that allows you to see the best of not only the best players, but also the others. The likes of Henderson that you included is not a great player. Milner isn’t. Firmino is fecking overrated too as an individual. But all have had their qualities amplified at Liverpool because it is a great platform to perform. Same goes for City. We’ve seen the very best of Cancelo since entering these perfect conditions to play. Majority of their players play well. Ober recent years, majority of ours have struggled.
Yeah, we've had that argument about Pogba - he's in a dysfunctional team. I'll add that to the "he needs better colleagues", "he needs a better manager", "he needs to be in a different position" list.
If only we had an example of a midfielder coming into a dysfunctional team like ours 3 years ago from a foreign league and showing better consistency from the off.
I don't think I could have written a better response than what @gajender posted tbh and I see you already saw it and responded to it
The standard of the football forums on here is on the floor, I don't think anyone is disillusioned by that, but I'm sure you don't go around all the other player performance threads saying how unreasonable certain posts are.
If you don't think he's been playing well since he returned from injury then, who, in your eyes has been playing well? That's my question.
Also, yes he's drifting out of games, he's clearly having to rebuild his stamina & fitness - and again the entire team have drifted out of games, that why we've suffered 4 1-1 draws despite starting well. That's not on Pogba alone, the entire team tend to switch off in the second half.
Pogba has put in a solid season of consistency in the 17/18 year when we won Europa, again the team wasn't great but him, Zlatan & De Gea were pretty much our best players. He's also been consistent for the last 12 months, and the fact that you can only name a few players who have been consistent for such short periods of time speaks to my point. Pretty much everyone has been patchy, nobody has maintained a level of consistency throughout their entire time with us - even De Gea. I also think there's a clear difference in performance between Bruno's first 12 months and his last 12 months - I wouldn't call that consistent.
We're a struggling team, and if not for the drop-offs by Arsenal & Spurs we would've been languishing somewhere in the Europa spots in the league in the last few years.
The fact that we have so many players who put in a consistent 5/10 performance is bound to drag the entire level of the squad down - but that's not to say Pogba hasn't been one of the most consistent, despite all that.
Yeah - and I see where he's coming from. But I'm talking about Pogba's individual performances and we have examples from Bruno to show midfielders can come in and take games by the scruff of the neck on a more consistent basis. So I would disagree.
Barca hit a ridiculous hat trick in that regard (Coutinho/Dembele/Griezmann). Some clubs will always have to over pay for targets but there has to be a limit. Up to certain fees, it creates unrealistic expectations and crazy pressure on players.
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