Paul Pogba's mentality...

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Thinks Di Zerbi is better than Pep.
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Nonchalantly scoring the winner...
There's a thread calling to avoid the term 'bottler', so I'll try to explain my concerns rather than simply pointing the finger at Pogba.

But a number of times this season now we've seen him literally capitulate when the pressure is really on in a game. To the point where he literally starts playing like a Championship player.

One aspect is obviously positional, but another quite clearly is his mindset.

My question is this - if Shaw is being called out (rightly) for needing to adjust his mentality, surely Pogba needs the same at this point?

Is he a player that can be relied on when we need to dig in and when the pressure's on? If not, where should he be playing?

You simply can't have a player that's prone to completely capitulating running the midfield, it's so un-Mourinho-like that it's almost a bit surreal at times.
 
bottled it today
 
I worry about him in this aspect, hopefully he can adjust.
 
Was worried about this after the Liverpool showing where he was someplace else entirely for the game.

Clearly has some growing up to do in this regard.
 
It's surprised me. Was he like this at Juventus as well or has the fee and expectation gone to his head? I expected a winner's mentality; someone to stand up when the pressure is on. He seems the opposite to me.
 
The problem isn't one player, its an overall team mentality. When the team doesn't play with a strong, galvanized mindset, the individual players will always look like they are underperforming.
 
kps88 said:
It's surprised me. Was he like this at Juventus as well or has the fee and expectation gone to his head? I expected a winner's mentality; someone to stand up when the pressure is on. He seems the opposite to me.
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I think one aspect at Juve was that he was part of a strong, dominant midfield 3.

From what I understand, he wasn't played in a 2, and had very little defensive duty compared to that of playing in a 2. Saying that, this is just what I've gathered from watching a few Juve CL games and reading from Juve fans, I might be wrong.
 
K2K said:
The threads are out in full force today.

Just need the Giggs till the end of season one to complete the set.
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:lol:

Well let people rage, I think they'll cool down after a few days. Emotions are running high right now so people tend to be quite irrational.
 
I will say this again - any criticism of Pogba based on his transfer fee is unfair. Pogba did not decide his own transfer fee. It's not his fault our board decided to pay that much for him. He is a 22 year old kid who has less than 5 seasons of experience at the top level. Give him a fecking break. If we expect him to play like Zidane every game, it is just going to saddle him with unrealistic expectations and hamper his development.

Why do people blame Pogba (and Zlatan) for every single bad game, yet say absolutely nothing about Martial and Rashford, both of whom have done far less than Pogba has this season?
 
Santoryo said:
:lol:

Well let people rage, I think they'll cool down after a few days. Emotions are running high right now so people tend to be quite irrational.
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There's nothing irrational about this point.

It's irrational to try and 'green smiley' it away.

This has been a recurring issue this season and it is quite clearly an actual trait of his game.
 
He was as bad as I've seen him (and that's bad) in the last 20 mins today.

Very disappointing.
 
Pogba's problem is he is not working hard to improve his game since he came on both on and off the ball. His finishing and composure in the box is so poor too. Off the ball he is not winning first and second balls in the midfield to dictate the play and lacks the work rate required for better positioning. On the ball he takes too much time on the ball to pass it forward and tries to dribble past the defender who applies pressure just like he used to glide past 2- 3 players in seria a like a zidane would do but in the epl it does not work, you have to play one touch football here and make timely attacking runs in the attacking midfeild when going forward just like a scholes lampard or bastian schweinsteiger would make in their prime which he is lacking and ends up passing the ball sideways or breaking up the build up momentum.
 
He wants to do it all, and the pressure does seem to get to him, you can quite clearly see it, it's worrying, but I think it's an issue that'll be ironed out in time.
 
I agree that it's a team problem. What Pogba needs to work on is his finishing
 
Raoul said:
The problem isn't one player, its an overall team mentality. When the team doesn't play with a strong, galvanized mindset, the individual players will always look like they are underperforming.
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That is when you need your talisman(s) to step up. If Pogba is only going to be as good as the average performance of the team then we should never have spent that sum on him.
 
NK86 said:
That is when you need your talisman(s) to step up. If Pogba is only going to be as good as the average performance of the team then we should never have spent that sum on him.
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Exactly
 
NK86 said:
That is when you need your talisman(s) to step up. If Pogba is only going to be as good as the average performance of the team then we should never have spent that sum on him.
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He isn't our talisman though, and expecting him to be just because of what we paid for him, will always lead to disappointment.
 
He is still young and learning the game. He has all the qualities to be great. Just needs to put it together and with experience, the game will slow down for him. Those miskicks will turn into goals.

Was the same with Ronaldo. Pogba is on a similar level talent wise.

Poor from him today but he wasnt the only one who was fluffing his lines and missing shots.
 
Raoul said:
He isn't our talisman though, and expecting him to be just because of what we paid for him, will always lead to disappointment.
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He is supposed to be one of them and that's not based on the fee we paid for him. It's based on his potential and him being called one of the best midfielders in the game currently. If the team is playing poorly, you could bet your bottom penny that Keane would step up or Scholes/Giggs will pull off a piece of magic. I just never get that from Pogba in the games when the team is struggling. In fact he seems to exacerbate the poor nature of the performance by becoming worse.
 
NK86 said:
He is supposed to be one of them and that's not based on the fee we paid for him. It's based on his potential and him being called one of the best midfielders in the game currently. If the team is playing poorly, you could bet your bottom penny that Keane would step up or Scholes/Giggs will pull off a piece of magic. I just never get that from Pogba in the games when the team is struggling. In fact he seems to exacerbate the poor nature of the performance by becoming worse.
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Its always about what we paid for him. Its just a subconscious expectation that baked into players like Pogba.
 
Treble_Winning said:
I will say this again - any criticism of Pogba based on his transfer fee is unfair. Pogba did not decide his own transfer fee. It's not his fault our board decided to pay that much for him. He is a 22 year old kid who has less than 5 seasons of experience at the top level. Give him a fecking break. If we expect him to play like Zidane every game, it is just going to saddle him with unrealistic expectations and hamper his development.

Why do people blame Pogba (and Zlatan) for every single bad game, yet say absolutely nothing about Martial and Rashford, both of whom have done far less than Pogba has this season?
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He's not a 22 year old kid. He's 24 in 11 days. Rashford is 19 and Martial is barely 21. Both of them have carried our team at times last season too, Martial for most of it, obviously they will get more slack as they should do.
 
Pogba is 10 steps behind Scholes Zidane Bastian schweinsteiger Lampard Xavi and iniesta at the moment.
 
Raoul said:
He isn't our talisman though, and expecting him to be just because of what we paid for him, will always lead to disappointment.
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He is supposed to be in our midfield, and not just because of the price tag. Hes not living up to being our best midfielder this season. Especially in the bigger games.
 
Missing a good chance and looking happy likes it's no big deal.
He could cut that out!
 
kps88 said:
It's surprised me. Was he like this at Juventus as well or has the fee and expectation gone to his head? I expected a winner's mentality; someone to stand up when the pressure is on. He seems the opposite to me.
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At Juve he was in a midfield with 2 of Pirlo, Vidal and Marchisio the bulk of the time, he's 23 and not the steady head game controller that some want him to be at this stage
 
kps88 said:
It's surprised me. Was he like this at Juventus as well or has the fee and expectation gone to his head? I expected a winner's mentality; someone to stand up when the pressure is on. He seems the opposite to me.
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Hes always been like this. Cocky thinks he owns the joint. Hes a good player but people get too excited over him. Hes by far our best player.
 
Raoul said:
Its always about what we paid for him. Its just a subconscious expectation that baked into players like Pogba.
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You think we will pay that amount for a Liam Miller? Obviously when we have identified that Pogba is worth that amount then he has to be a game changer for us.
 
Cassidy said:
He usually plays with only one of them here these days.
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So its u to Pogba to be a b2b midfeilder like Schweinsteiger was in a 2 man midfeild and get into attacking midfeild and make a meaning ful contribution there rather than keep playing sideways or long balls to ibra. Pogba lacks workrate
 
Pogba can never play well in a midfield 2. He needs 2 very good midfielders behind him. Before buying Pogba, maybe those 2 mids should have been bought.
 
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