Paul Pogba image 6

Paul Pogba France flag

2021-22 Performances

View full 2021-22 profile

5.2 Season Average Rating
Appearances
27
Goals
1
Assists
9
Yellow cards
9
Red cards
1
Status
Not open for further replies.
Good on the ball in the second half. Should never start in a midfield two. But that’s been known for a long time.
 
Nick7 said:
Good on the ball in the second half. Should never start in a midfield two. But that’s been known for a long time.
Click to expand...
Played in a 2 second half…
 
Was the main driving force for us getting back in the game by pinging balls across the pitch.
Didn't have a great first half, but his quality is so clear.
 
So why the feck was he playing so deep today ? I don't get what Ole was thinking exactly.
 
Yeah I don't wanna see him in a midfield 2 with Fred.

His overall game was pretty mediocre, but even so I'm pretty sure he created at least 3 good chances with some brilliant first time balls over their defense that we wasted
 
Thought he was a lot better in the second half, but I’d still prefer if he didn’t play so deep. Ideally we’d be playing 4-3-3 and push him slightly further forward.
 
Fred is not the one he can pair with if he plays deep. They were going through our midfield like there was nothing.

But, we really can't play with only one player sitting with this squad and the way we play right now.
 
Nick7 said:
Good on the ball in the second half. Should never start in a midfield two. But that’s been known for a long time.
Click to expand...

I think he is going to have to start a lot of games in a 2 this year with the players we have, no way to get Ronaldo, Bruno, Rashford(when fit) Sancho, Greenwood, Cavani enough games if Pogba is nailed down in the front 3, which is a pity because Pogba looked great the first 2 games in that role.
 
Nick7 said:
Ok? What’s your point? He was still atrocious off the ball in the second. Wolves still ran through and bypassed our midfield in the second.
Click to expand...
We would have been bypassed and played through with anyone else there. The setup today was wrong and Wolves setup to overload the middle.

Ole needed to switch to midfield 3
 
Class offensively, poor defensively. Not suited to that position unless we get a ball-winning, game controlling monster.
 
Cassidy said:
We would have been bypassed and played through with anyone else there. The setup today was wrong and Wolves setup to overload the middle.

Ole needed to switch to midfield 3
Click to expand...
Yeah I absolutely agree, that was my point. Setting up with 2 in midfield is wrong, especially against a team that play like Wolves have this season. Setting up with a 2 where one of them is Pogba is even worse IMO. Great on the ball when he got going but was never really an entity on the defensive side, which should have hurt us more than it did. We got away with it, and I hope next time Ole is smarter so we don’t just get away with it.
 
The United said:
Fred is not the one he can pair with if he plays deep. They were going through our midfield like there was nothing.

But, we really can't play with only one player sitting with this squad and the way we play right now.
Click to expand...
They are outnumbered. It wouldnt matter who any of them sits with if we keep playing with 2 strikers.
 
Really good in the second half and made some very good chances.

Consistent to me this season. 5 good halfs and one bad. I'll take that
 
mu4c_20le said:
He can play in a midfield two when theres a third midfielder out wide
Click to expand...

Or when the 10 doesn't play like a striker. Teams rarely setup the way we do with a 10 that plays like a striker and wide players that stay high and don't strictly cover the wings. Teams generally defend in a strict 4411 or a 433/4123.
 
A couple of super passes over the top to Bruno, one of which Fernandes was slightly offside. Awful first half performance, caught in possession and not that interested in defending. Decent shot from an angle that was saved in the 2nd half.
 
Last edited:
Cassidy said:
We would have been bypassed and played through with anyone else there. The setup today was wrong and Wolves setup to overload the middle.

Ole needed to switch to midfield 3
Click to expand...
Right on the money. The problem was there to see but we never bothered to fix it even during the second half. we just added more quality by removing james and replacing him with anyone.
 
Along with Greenwood the only offensive players who turned up.
 
Most passes and touches on the team, Bruno hasn't helped him or Fred anywhere near enough today.
 
Unreal attacking wise, but poor defensively. Is it half empty or half full. Which Pogba do you see? He was the one who could unlock the defense. But poor then defending.
 
Superb passing, he's the only who is capable of playing penetrating passes and unlocking teams.
 
Hugh Jass said:
Unreal attacking wise, but poor defensively. Is it half empty or half full. Which Pogba do you see? He was the one who could unlock the defense. But poor then defending.
Click to expand...

He's always been defensively terrible which is why it makes no sense to play him in a midfield 2. It never, ever works.
 
Seems like he had a bit of a sulk in the first 45. Left Fred isolated a few times and didn't track back.

Second 45, he worked a lot harder and had more freedom to do his thing.

Completely opposing halves for him.
 
KennyBurner said:
They are outnumbered. It wouldnt matter who any of them sits with if we keep playing with 2 strikers.
Click to expand...
Does not matter. Playing with 2 CMs at the base still should not have been that messy. It is not just the midfield fault though of course. Our wings were pretty shite as retaining the ball and doing anything with it. It put a lot of pressure on the defense over and over.
 
el3mel said:
So why the feck was he playing so deep today ? I don't get what Ole was thinking exactly.
Click to expand...
We've bought a shitload of attackers and Ole is hoping to fit more of them in by playing Pogba deeper. It ain't gonna work.
 
MattofManchester said:
Seems like he had a bit of a sulk in the first 45. Left Fred isolated a few times and didn't track back.

Second 45, he worked a lot harder and had more freedom to do his thing.

Completely opposing halves for him.
Click to expand...
My feeling as well.
 
I just think you need a midfielder 5 yards behind him. He'll lose the ball sometimes so cant be the last line before they're on top of our defenders. Give Fred or McTominay a 5 to 10 yard head start when it happens and it'll be easier to manage imo. I think you play the same midfield as a 3 and it'd work far better, it'll still have shortcomings but wont be getting rinsed by mid table teams in teh same manner.
Though i guess everyone is bored of changing our midfield to suit him. I just kind of wish we'd stop using him in ways that are obviously, clearly making bad use of him. I think he should be competing with the attacking players and mostly disregarded in the defensive half as Bruno or Rashford would be.
 
Got away with that foul. Could have been a red and should have been a yellow at the least.

Our best player on the ball. The amount of times we played out of a press or got the ball into a free player due to his composure on the ball was instrumental. It wasn't due to amazing team movement or tactics, it was due to him holding onto the ball for an extra 0.5 seconds and then switching it. We live dangerously because as we also saw, he can sometimes dally on it too much and we lose the ball in open space. That's down to Ole as much as Pogba.

Other than than, he tried but as we know not great off the ball or defensively.

JPRouve said:
Or when the 10 doesn't play like a striker. Teams rarely setup the way we do with a 10 that plays like a striker and wide players that stay high and don't strictly cover the wings. Teams generally defend in a strict 4411 or a 433/4123.
Click to expand...

Yes we're essentially 4-2-4 when Bruno is so far ahead.
 
Looked lost in the first half and got better in the second — mostly on the ball though, creating most of our (scarcely few) chances. One of the few games where you can hardly blame him for not trying to track back, but he still got completely outplayed. Fred having one of the worst performances by any United player in history certainly didn't help yet Ole has to take a huge part of the blame for that mess we found ourselves in tonight.
 
harms said:
Looked lost in the first half and got better in the second — mostly on the ball though, creating most of our (scarcely few) chances. One of the few games where you can hardly blame him for not trying to track back, but he still got completely outplayed. Fred having one of the worst performances by any United player in history certainly didn't help yet Ole has to take a huge part of the blame for that mess we found ourselves in tonight.
Click to expand...
Its impossible to hold midfield performances like this against Pogba at this point. Its too predictable, its too expected.
 
Some mentioned it after the Leeds game where he made like 4 great chances which were all taken and that led to 4 assists and that was seen as a great game, but in another day those chances get wasted and it won’t get talked about again.

The second half was one of those performances. About 3 genuinely goalscoring chances were made from his passes
 
The United said:
Does not matter. Playing with 2 CMs at the base still should not have been that messy. It is not just the midfield fault though of course. Our wings were pretty shite as retaining the ball and doing anything with it. It put a lot of pressure on the defense over and over.
Click to expand...
It wasn't your normal double pivot in a 4-2-3-1. It was

Sancho - Bruno - Greenwood - James
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- Fred -------- Pogba ------------
Shaw -------- Maguire -- Varane ----- AWB
 
harms said:
It wasn't your normal double pivot in a 4-2-3-1. It was

Sancho - Bruno - Greenwood - James
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- Fred -------- Pogba ------------
Shaw -------- Maguire -- Varane ----- AWB
Click to expand...

Exactly this, no midfield can look good in a 424 formation. The gaps were too large and options were limited to having to play the ball over the top.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.