Still maintain he was a decent signing.
Paul Pogba - Free Agent | ban reduced - able to play competitively from March 2025
- Thread starter charlenefan
- Start date
He was special.
He was special at being inconsistent af.
Obvious hater
The guy left years ago, the vitriol has been incessant since, just like for Lukaku. Although that’s reduced by 75% with the loss of giflord.
Im not sure I agree and the bolded accusation could be levelled at either of them. Zlatan with his whole lion image was just as bad and neither were quite as brilliant as they thought they were. Zlatan has played for half the clubs in Europe for a reason and I don't think he ever overachieved anywhere he went.
Looking at their trophy cabinets and how instrumental they were to those trophies they're pretty even.
Pogba was lead down the garden path by his agent. If he had stayed at United, been patient for a while, listened to Fergie, he might have ended up one of our all-time greats.
Arguably his injury troubles would've still persisted and he would have probably ended up being a player who was great in spells but in the physio room half the time.
The greatest of all times.
Can't tell if this is serious or tongue in cheek! Tbh I totally 'nothing' him...he was great to watch at times and very frustrating at others. I will barely remember his time at the club.
You say that but we tried multiple personnel and multiple formations. His biggest flaws in my opinion were not related to those anyway, they were 1. Mental aspect, 2. Slowing United’s game down by holding onto the ball too long in the PL
He should have give to Spain where he’s probably have looked good in the highlight reels of Madrid. With hindsight he wasn’t right fit for the PL
That is one of the core elements of his story I think. When he came, he was one of the best players in the squad, reputation wise. He also came at a time, when our midfield needed serious improvement and the squad in general was pretty flat. The issue though was, I think, this transfer was carried by the supposedly "great return story". And I think, it carried club and player away. We obviously hadn't understood what the conditions where, to make him thrive. And that being said, this definitely applies for big chunks of the fanbase back then and reading the comments here, even today. Tinkering with his position was a factor. His team mates were a factor. Him being looked at as a player to lead the team was a factor. And there were probably even more variables in the equasion. All in all, it led to many disappointment all over the place. Raiola and some of Pogs public statements piled onto it even more.
Who knows what could have been. I am pretty sure, he wouldn't have become a world star at Madrid for some of the same reasons as with United. But another team, with a better running "machine" ready to optimize the conditions for Pogba to shine, I think, he could have become a bigger name than he is now.
That being said, I think, he arrived at the scene 10 years to late. Would have been a bigger star in the 90ties and early 2000s. For me he is one of the chapters of what is wrong with Uniteds recruitment, headline "Go for players for the wrong reasons"
That city game is being made out to be his Keane v Juventus game. City should have been 5 up at halftime
Pogba is a poster boy of the modern 'fan' that values players over clubs - huge hype and 'influence' build from nothing that is done on the field since he was a 'kid'.
8 years of relative mediocrity later (plus evidence he's a drugs cheat) yet there's still a slavish cult.
It's unfathomable that people still pine for the him.
8 years of relative mediocrity later (plus evidence he's a drugs cheat) yet there's still a slavish cult.
It's unfathomable that people still pine for the him.
Shite signing, saw it without hindsight. Some upset mod didn't like it. Hence the tagine.
At least we stopped City getting 103 points
He never was all that and his talent has been overrated.
One thing I’ll give Pogba he never went to PSG like Veratti for example. Veratti kinda just faded away at that club. Sure he won a lot of titles but Pogba actually joined the toughest leagues and picked up injuries because of it.
He definitely tried to do it the hard way and wasn’t quite technical enough for Madrid or Barcelona so coming to United kinda made sense.
He looked built for the Prem at first glance. I still think he should have stayed at United and he may of got a move to Barcelona after a few years under Fergie.
I think he was technical enough for La Liga. I don’t think lacking technique was his big issue. It was a mixture of half arsing it, injuries & possibly never committing to a set position. IMO anyway.
Could have been immense in a Pep “8” system (KdB/Gundogan), or a “normal b2b 8” system or even as he was at Juve before our move, shifted out and removing all his defensive duties.
Kind of like a Jack of all trades but he should have mastered one, rather.
Agreed. People talk about ‘talent’ like he had more to offer than being hard to take the ball off. Winning a world club clouds a lot of people’s judgement on him.
He’s technical for sure but what I meant to say was he wouldn’t have got in the Madrid team ahead of Kroos or Modric. Maybe if they’d played Pogba more all out attack in place of Asensio maybe but even then Asensio for a brief period looked a sure bet to become a world star.
He defintiely wanted Madrid and obviously Barcelona were more looking for someone in the Xavi mould after he retired.
Pogba would have only joined those clubs so in Spain so it was difficult to see a scenario they would have bothered doing a deal.
I feel like he has had a good career but have a feeling of "what could he have been?" but maybe that was me buying into the hype and overrating his ability/potential. Apparently French fans also had to lower their expectations of him
Pogba almost certainly was our best player over the course of his first four years. Probably only the best in one of those actual seasons, but he was one of our better players in the other three as well. Meanwhile the players that outperformed him one season would then be utterly poor the next. People complain about his consistency but ignore the fact that every other player we had was even more inconsistent and had less good periods. He wasn't as good as we wanted him to be but he was still the best of a bad bunch.
Of course the less said about his last two seasons the better...
Yep. Instead we only did that twice in his entire six years here. One short period in his first season (Herrera and Carrick beside him) where he was solid and the team as a whole was the best it was that season, then another period in his third season (Herrera and Matic) which was the best form of his career. The latter was also by far the best midfield balance we've had in the last decade and we had literal title-winning form in the 20 games they played together (17 wins, 2 draws and a loss). So what did we do...revert straight back to using him deep and expecting him to be the controlling player.
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Yeah agreed.
I think it's somewhere between the two - with a prime Kante rather than Matic, but also with his place in the team being contingent upon moving the ball more quickly and looking for certain types of runs or combinations, he could have been very good. Look at his displays in that French team of the late 2010s....
Pogba was talented but he was never great.
The real question is why do some people constantly judge players on their talent alone, instead of as a total package?
Pogba and Kante rarely actually played in a midfield two, at least around that WC period they were so successful. A while ago I checked out all the games over roughly a three year period and they only played in a proper two-man midfield four times, all against very weak teams. The rest of the time they had another hard-working central midfielder in there with them, sometimes played in the midfield and sometimes played on the wing (but obviously helping out the midfield a lot more than a normal winger). It was also noticeable that in the games where Pogba was injured or rested, France were much more likely to play a proper two man midfield with two attacking wingers.
So even France, in the international stage where the intensity is much lower, and in a team that normally had a much bigger talent gap between them and the opposition than what you find in club football, didn't play Pogba in a two man midfield very often. I think they started doing it a little more often later on, but still used a third midfielder in there on a regular basis.
For me he was the same regardless who he played with or what position/role. Few great games, mostly indifferent, few very poor games. They tried him in many. If you talking about 2019 he like many players, fell off in the crunch end of the season after Ole new manager bounce evaporated. He isn't good enough to have to sacrifice or allow such catering to him. He will always be what he isYep. Instead we only did that twice in his entire six years here. One short period in his first season (Herrera and Carrick beside him) where he was solid and the team as a whole was the best it was that season, then another period in his third season (Herrera and Matic) which was the best form of his career. The latter was also by far the best midfield balance we've had in the last decade and we had literal title-winning form in the 20 games they played together (17 wins, 2 draws and a loss). So what did we do...revert straight back to using him deep and expecting him to be the controlling player.
Yeah, my point was more that Kante plus a connecting 8 (Like Herrera, even if he wasn't exactly world class) plus Pogba would have worked as upgrade on the Matic Herrera and Pogba 3 with which we played our best football, rather than Pogba as 1 in the midfield 2. I don't think Pogba's disciplined enough for 2 man midfield with a classical 10 in front of them...
Doing a big deal for someone like Koke back then alongside Pogba would have been the thing. Herrera was supposed to be that but he was far too limited.
Matic, Pogba and a world class number 8 was what was needed. As usual it was a half baked plan due to Glazer’s going so far but not far enough with spending.
We always spend big on one player instead of thinking right who’s their partner gonna be.
Weirdest thread bump I've seen in a while.
If by years you means 15-20 games a season, yes.
Frame it how you like. Rashford has been one of our best performers since 2016.
If you just look at stats and ignore the games where he’s garbage.
Nope. If I look at the whole package. We have had a lot of genuine garbage during Rashford's time. We have also had players who are remembered fondly despite not being a fraction of the player that Rashford has been for this club.
If you look at the whole package, you’ll realise Rashford offers next to nothing when he’s not in one of his 10-15 games per season hot streak.
And it’s the same with Pogba, they can look great on their day, and absolute garbage when they’re not in form. The biggest problem is that they’re far more often out of form than in form. Trying to argue otherwise is insane.
If you can't accept that Rashford has been one of our best players since his debut, then that is on you.
He was special
Silly post. Why could you not put them in the same sentence, and why is it laughable? Pogba is a world cup winner, being one of their best players and playing a huge role. If you think his football abilities are average, then you don't really know much about football. Putting up attacking midfielder numbers as a deep lying playmaker is not as bad as you make it out to be (particularly when you understand that he isn't a deep lying playmaker, and we should not have played him as one).