I greatly appreciate the research.
I begin with the subjective claim that Paul Pogba is a genuinely world class for footballer, the only player we’ve had over the previous five years (thus, before Ronaldo and Varane joined us this season) one could say would have featured (assuming the possibility of time travel) regularly in our 98-99 and 07-08 sides. That could be a daft claim but my point is my very high regard for Pogba’a proven ability.
The problem is that we haven’t seen the kind of world class performances from Pogba on a consistent basis in a United shirt. That’s not only not deniable but your research backs that up. We see the occasional brilliant performance, maybe even two or three straight, followed by pretty ordinary and sometimes woeful performances which leave most of us wondering WTF has happened to him.
But when he’s up for it, what a man. He toys with opposing players, igniting fantastic transitions and creating chances. The concern is that he falls off that kind of firm too often, the expansion for which we can only speculate. But we can’t be blind to the reality that Pogba drops off a steep cliff far too often for a world classfootballer.
Or is it that our expectations are unrealistic, that
Pogba really isn’t not a world class footballer and that his performances for Juve and France enabled the creation of a mythology around him? I don’t think so, but perhaps you can offer your own view of the matter. Is Pogba genuinely world class or is he overhyped and that what United have gotten out of Pogba the player, over the last five seasons, is actually nothing more than we should expected?
If you’re now simply asking my opinion on the player I will guess that you’ve accepted that you were wildly incorrect with your recollection in the first place, as that’s important. Pogba has been far better than you recall, my stats aren’t instantly going to change your recollection, so we must accept that the way you feel he has performed is inaccurate.
My opinion is that Pogba has very definitive world class aspects to his game, but too many weaknesses in his game, make upto be considered a world class player. A player capable of world class performances but whose flaws can be exposed, particularly when played in positions that leave him vulnerable. People talk like we’ve built a team around him, or attempted to. Why would anyone play Pogba in a double pivot next to players who weren’t high energy defensive beasts to cover for his flaws, if they were indeed building around Pogba? The truth is he’s been mostly asked to adapt to us, which is fine, but is largely responsible for his inconsistent performances.
The next point I’d make is that if you’re asking a player with Pogba’s skill set and deficiencies to play in a struggling team, with very little structure and inconsistent performance levels……you will get inconsistent performances guaranteed.
Where does this leave us? Predictably he hasn’t lived up to expectations given that we have been largely inconsistent and poorly set up as a team for five years, relying on individual brilliance, rather than cohesive consistent team performance. Anyone expecting Roy Keane, Stevie G type performances simply misunderstood the player he is, and that’s not his fault. I wonder what the view of Pogba would be, if he performed the same but looked more like Modric.
Does not living up to expectations, being underwhelming and just not being downright great mean that he hasn’t outperformed his compatriots….absolutely not as the stats show. He has produced higher quality performances on a regular basis than any of his teammates and been one of our better players every season he has played for us…..given he’s actually an icing on the cake player, my personal opinion is that that in itself is some form of achievement.
As I’ve said repeatedly, people’s reflections on Pogba are wildly inconsistent with what he’s actually produced, people can’t even remember the last twelve months and you constantly trying to move goalposts, manipulate stats, or bring into question whether he actually performed well, or if the team were actually battered and he was given a token award have proven to be way off the mark. But yes thanks for the research indeed.
I’m not interested in a back and forth with anyone who can’t recall anything like an accurate assessment as it’s not going to change anything, you’ve built up this alternate reality in any case. All of our high quality offensive players have been equally or more inconsistent and unless we improve as a team, the downward spiral of performances from all our attacking talents will not decline.
The point was, and remains….bumping a thread because you’ve plucked some random figure out of your arse and stated it as fact, then stating it as a mind blowing fact….is in itself mind blowing and has been proven to be totally inaccurate.