Clearly didn't watch Varane.
6
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 27
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 9
- Yellow cards
- 9
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
He's not a problem any way you want to spin it when he's among the best players on the pitch nearly every time.
Having to be build around and his wages are arbitrary criteria I don't share.
Stopped creating much after he went off.
Thought Pogba was good last night, played the sort of passes we need from McFred, faded out in the second half but it was his first game back.
For a midfielder he wins a decent amount of pens for us
He looked really good for his first game back in months - all creativity went away when he came off.
I would love us to keep hold of Pogba. I believe he is our best all round player. Doesn’t rock the boat as much as some like to believe and his wages are fine given his talent.
We should be doing everything to keep a player of his calibre given we are barely scraping top 4 at this point in time especially.
Never understood the wage argument when we pay people like Phil Jones 100k per week. Surely getting rid of Mata, Jones etc allows us to keep someone like Pogba.
Concedes a decent amount too!
Pogba willing to play deep midfield as a playmaker with a focus on positional discipline would be ideal. However the club has been trying to make him into that player for 6 years and it has never worked beyond short spells.
It’s this ‘willing to’ stuff that always ends up dragging me into boring debates on here! ‘Able to’ play it to a good enough level, would be far more appropriate.
Maybe, all in perception. For me Pogba has always seen himself as pure attacking midfielder, but many of his attributes are a better fit for deeper, while at the same time certain aspects hold him back there. He has shown with France he can play deeper to a very high level, at international level he is among the best in the game in that role. Transitioning to that role in his club career has been more difficult.
However, you are correct, this debate has been done to death, I love watching him play, I also hate watching him play at times.
Could have perhaps kept him on the pitch with just only ten minutes more to go and take him off if it goes to extra time. There was no control in our play after he went off
He can't do it consistently to level some are expecting at United. There's too much press on the ball in the PL for that and he has silly lapses in concentration when defending is concerned as he starts to tire. I agree with the bloke you quoted that willing shouldn't be a part of the conversation, because it feeds into the narrative he's lazy and I think it's more of a case of him being a slightly flawed player.
He'd be brilliant in France/Italy/Spain even with the odd defensive brain fart because there's less press.
National team games are way slower and his team is usually dominating. Also he plays with the best player in the world right next to him.
He's still prone to the same mistakes for France too. I recall he scored a screamer against the Swiss in the euro and then a few minutes later he sets the Swiss up for a goal.
The issue here is that you expect a player to make a role work without providing the same support. Pogba wasn't particularly good without Griezmann acting as the main playmaker and as the player managing the forwards and midfielders defensively, the addition of Kanté later made things even better. And the thing is that we need these players regardless of Pogba which makes things a bit strange when we focus on Pogba and ignore the shortcomings of his teammates even though we all know that they have those shortcomings.
More important to not risk injury and have him available for league games to finish top 4. The rest of the team had enough out there to beat the oppo but just didn't.
Played well enough, but as per most Poggers performances there was the usual moment of doing something stupidly flash when he was deep, and almost costing us a breakaway, having to take a desperate yellow to make up for it.
Literally evey player is getting their shortcomings discussed. Right now, in every single player thread. Constantly.
Not in that context. I'm yet to see someone suggest that McTominay, Fred or even Maguire shortcomings are a matter of will.
He was brilliant for Juventus in Champions league games against Klopp's BVB, against Pep's Bayern and against Real Madrid. But maybe there is less pressure there than at Stoke in a Wednesday night.
In Russia 2018 he had Matuidi, Kanté with him. He just won the NL with France playing alongside Rabiot for the semifinal and alongside Tchouaméni for the final. Which one of the 5 is the world's best player? Or maybe you mean Veretout, or is it Nzonzi who replaced Kanté at halftime during the WC final?
No, he didn't set up the Swiss for a goal. He set up his teammates for goals and they missed them. The one you chose to remeber is the thing that always gets blown out of proportion when it happens to Pogba, you somehow ignored the other french players making real errors, much worse mistakes in that action.
Because there's no evidence those three lack will.
AWB, Shaw, Ronaldo, Rashford, Sancho, Lingard, Greenwood and Martial. All heavily criticsed for a lack of will, effort or professionalism. Cavani is criticised for his commitment and will with his time off.
To say it's only Pogba who gets brought up on this stuff is just factually incorrect. So incorrect that it makes no sense.
We're a lazy squad and plenty of them get stick for being part of that. They're not ignored.
We are talking about the will of playing a particular tactical role. You are talking about laziness or commitment which has nothing to do with the points made.
You can name 3 games from years ago and one half of a world cup where he played without Kante? Not really helping your case there.
Pogba also does the silliest of the things on the ball at times, he did some really dumb stuff yesterday as well. Concentration isn't his strong suit.
Yes, he literally blundered the ball away for no reason, (Swiss bloke just took it off him as he stood there and watched his feet), and they scored from that. Im pretty sure it made the highlights. I'm not disputing he can provide assists.
There's many such graphs/stats out there. Pogba isn't as press resistant as some of the world class midfielders.
It's one of the reasons he hasn't been consistently great for us, the other is he's often been played slightly out of position. His best role is as a left sided box to box midfielder. We bought a player that like occupies the same zones as him and then we played him in the role we didn't buy a player for.
I think he's a great player and he's done a lot better for us than most people on here would admit, but I think these are the two reasons he hasn't lived up to the (world class) expectations.
Everyone knows that Pogba’s issues are not a matter of will but they wont admit it, because that would mean admitting they are wrong
You can name 3 games from years ago and one half of a world cup where he played without Kante? Not really helping your case there.
Pogba also does the silliest of the things on the ball at times, he did some really dumb stuff yesterday as well. Concentration isn't his strong suit.
Yes, he literally blundered the ball away for no reason, (Swiss bloke just took it off him as he stood there and watched his feet), and they scored from that. Im pretty sure it made the highlights. I'm not disputing he can provide assists.
There's many such graphs/stats out there. Pogba isn't as press resistant as some of the world class midfielders.
It's one of the reasons he hasn't been consistently great for us, the other is he's often been played slightly out of position. His best role is as a left sided box to box midfielder. We bought a player that like occupies the same zones as him and then we played him in the role we didn't buy a player for.
I think he's a great player and he's done a lot better for us than most people on here would admit, but I think these are the two reasons he hasn't lived up to the (world class) expectations.
Pogba received the ball under pressure in Switzerland half, with no obvious pass options, three swiss players infront of him closing in and a fourth one that tackled him from behind. Then he has 5 teammates behind him and there is no immediate danger until Kimpembe decides for some reason to take Rabiot's player and leave the middle of the defense uncovered, we can also mention Kanté who ignores gavranovic.
I'll take your for it he wasn't at fault there.
Still it's not like there's a lack of brain farts to choose from to substantiated the claim that he has concentration issues. He makes more silly mistakes than world class midfielders.
Standard Pogba - best player on the pitch, oozes class, a little slow at times and good for a dangerous giveaway in a dangerous area.
He always has said brainfart. He feels the need to create something on his own. With Juve and France he had perfectly balanced midfield around him to cover these dumb mistakes or negate his need to risk in dangerous areas.
I'm good with him playing deep when we are building an attack from the back, but when we have possession around their box I want him up with the forwards.
He always has said brainfart. He feels the need to create something on his own. With Juve and France he had perfectly balanced midfield around him to cover these dumb mistakes or negate his need to risk in dangerous areas.
I'm good with him playing deep when we are building an attack from the back, but when we have possession around their box I want him up with the forwards.
Crikey the lengths you guys go to to suggest only Pogba gets criticised. This is a very niche criticsm you've developed that apparently nobody else receives.
I think you have a good point with having the right expectations of Pogba. Imo it’s also a fair point that he has a different game for France than for United. I think it rings true that his game suffers slightly against agressive and well drilled pressing like you’ll find more of in the PL. This doesn’t make him unsuited for the PL, by no means, it just makes parts of his game more vulnerable. It’s fair to say Kante must be about the best player in the world at the role needed to play Pogba in a pivot. There are not many players in the world of the same profieles AND levels as peak Griezman and Kante, so an issue is wether building around Pogba with slightly less suitable foils and slightly higher vulnerabilities is good enough to surpass City. Of course, Solskjær and Mourinho have made second place with Pogba in the team, which to me is not that far from winning one WC with France (not in status, but in performance relative to squad quality)..
The biggest issue with Pogba, is his inconsistency with regards to health/top form, his slowness of tactical development, and the fact that two fairly different coaches have tried to build around him in several ways without finding a key. That is not damning, it just matches badly with the tension between being a fiery motivational talker end seemingly being on the way out for the greater part of his Man Utd career. One gets tired of it not entirely working, which is not solely on Pogba, but certainly partly on him.
For me, I always hope that this time we will unlock his potential in a consistent fashion, but I’m tired of getting disappointed, so I wouldn’t mind if he moved on.
That wasn't the point, no one said that only Pogba gets criticized. The point was that Pogba inability to replicate the role that he plays for France or played for Juventus at United isn't a matter of will but due to the fact that he has teammates with different shortcomings. Pogba is one of the few players that is dropped in a totally different team and some people expect him to be able to do the exact same things at the same level, that's fanciful at best and you just have to look at Pogba for France before 2016.
But you don't build around Pogba, France didn't build around him and his role changed with the introduction of Griezmann, in fact since 2016 France has largely been built around Griezmann and then Mbappé. I don't think that it can be emphasized enough but there is no point building around Pogba France tried before 2016 and it wasn't good, he wasn't consistent and a large amount of people wanted him nowhere near the team. Juventus never actually built around him it's not how they got rhe most out of him and a key point is that his roles for Juventus and France have been vastly different, so it's also not fair for anyone to suggest that he needs a particular set of player around him or a particular role.
And yes Pogba inconsistency is frustrating but he has always been like that, the player that people were raving about before United was also inconsistent which is why I knew that people who were overrating him would turn on him when they actually see him week in week out. That's also why I said from the start that you can't count of him to be your engine, he is the kind of player that puts you on top but he can't be what makes you good on a weekly basis.
Thanks, those are interesting nuances about his France and Juve epoques. What would you say would be needed for him to play an important (not necessarily main) role at United (probably too late know, but hypothetically). I’ve grown a bit blind to be honest.
I think that it's just about overall balance, I don't think that there is a need to focus on Pogba but on the team as a whole. For example United currently lacks someone that can be the main link between the attack and the defense. And that's with or without Pogba, we also need more balance upfront with more players that feed our forwards, hopefully Sancho takes that role but we could do with an alternative.
For France or the best version of Juventus Pogba was a support player, he helps those specialists and they help him in return. In a way it reminds me Seedorf, his role would change depending on who was playing with him without being actually complete, he was a jack of all trades but master of none.
No idea what the hell he was doing when the goal was conceded. He literally stands two meters behind Crooks who is completely free right in front of an open goal and all he does is taking a stroll and doing some ball-watching.
All of our players stopped when they saw the handball. No one actually expected that goal to stand. I am not sure I would blame anyone for the goal we conceded. It was just one of the worst refereeing decisions of all time.
Interesting take. I do agree that it’s probably best for both United and Pogba not to focus so much on Pogba, wether he stays or goes.
Probably it’s a bit the fault of the price tag, of those who irrationally compare games with to historical money exchanges, and a bit the fault of of building Pogba as a superstar brand. It’s also some of my own fault because some of his strengths are so easy on the eye, it’s hard not to accept that he may not be able to be that kind of link between defence and attack you mention.
I’m sure if he switched agent, changed his name to Willy Johnson, registred at transfermatrkt with a transfer fee of £5m, and started having boring hair styles, me and alot of others would be alot more positivie about his actual contributions. It’s unfair, yet it is what it is.
Burnley 1:1 Man Utd
Faded a bit and at times quite sloppy(72% pass completion) but still probably our best player tonight.
Our best player. By far. Not just in this game.
Brilliant first half then like everybody else in the 2nd half, intensity dropped off.
Our best player again.
Our best player again.
Just an excellent footballer
Good tonight, one of the few who can hold their heads up.
- Status