Under Ten Hag could Pogba have been sensational?

No, because the reality is, he's just not that good. At some point you have to put aside all the excuses and blame game, look at a guy who's in the back half of his career and admit, while he had moments, he's just not a particularly good professional footballer.
 
This is such a tricky topic. Ten Hag would have to adjust most of his teammates to Pogba's free role, but this is just another example of us being lucky, Eriksen was available for free...
 
I thought Pogba leaving would be the end of people trying to pretend Pogba being shite was due to everything except Pogba consistently playing shite. Should have known better.

Also just to clarify, if Pogba had stayed he'd have been precisely 0 use to Ten Hag so far due to being injured, and embroiled in some kind of family blood fued/gun blackmail/voodoo doll circus, which I'm sure the media here definitely wouldn't have used to cast a negative shadow over the entire club...
 
Of course he could. His dallying on the ball in silly areas was half his own fault and half the fault of those around him who played with fear and didn’t want the ball. He was playing a different game to some team mates in a very poorly coached team. He’s got loads of ability he just needed things simplifying around him and better movement. His biggest problem now would probably be lack of mobility after injuries and just being a nob
 
Peak Casemiro is one of the best partners for Pogba alongside Kanté but I wouldn’t lose my sleep over how great Pogba could’ve been for Ten Hag. He is also nothing like Frenkie.
 
To be fair, if McTominay can look like a competent holding mid under ETH's tutelage then you have to wonder.
 
That depends whether he could be arsed to apply himself...

The trouble with the squad that we have assembled is that we have, for whatever reason, acquired a few lads who seem to struggle to motivate themselves.

Primarily I am talking about Sancho, Rashford, Shaw, Martial and obviously Pogba during his time here.

Correlation is not causation but there's a common trait...all were touted as stars of the future at a young age and all were at 'big club' academies in their teens. They're not 'street fighters', who had to earn their move to top clubs later in their careers.

Football nowadays is a stodgy, tactical, highly-intense game played by elite athletes. It's not the same 'football' as the 90's, when mercurial talents turned up hungover, smoked a pack of cigs, strolled around the pitch at walking pace and could still have a big impact because of the open nature of the games, poor tactical acumen and the fact half the opposing team were equally unprofessional!

In modern football, if you don't want to compete or can't compete physically then it doesn't matter how much talent you have, you're a liability
 
Put it this way, put the Pogba fresh off of the plane from Juve pre-injuries into this side and you'd get something closer to France Pogba, if not a bit better with finally having a proper coach. I truly think that version would be a monster. But for today's version, he'd been through too many shit managers, playing in too many shit sides, with no real consistent role or midfield partner, while having too much agent drama along with his numerous physical ailments and 0 trust from the majority of the fans. Would have been too difficult to work through all of that even if he could stay fit. Too much baggage.
 
Sigh, he's long gone, and we still have these threads.

He could have been amazing if:
  1. He had the right midfielders around him
  2. Had the right strikers in front
  3. The right manager
  4. Joined at a different time
Must be the least influential "world class" player ever that needs everything set up for him to look good.
 
Ten Hag would have him on the bench. No way Ten Hag would have played him when his work rate isnt up there. He also prefers players to pass it around, Pogba takes too many touches on the ball in midfield anyway.

Plus he has also become a bit of a sick note.
 
Sandikan said:
Sigh, he's long gone, and we still have these threads.

He could have been amazing if:
  1. He had the right midfielders around him
  2. Had the right strikers in front
  3. The right manager
  4. Joined at a different time
Must be the least influential "world class" player ever that needs everything set up for him to look good.
Click to expand...

Every great player needs other things set around them to be great. Haaland without service would just look like an oaf up front. VVD playing in a terrible back line would look bad. De Bruyne next to McTominay and Fred wouldn't look nearly as good as he does for City even if he's still the same world class player. Trent without those energetic midfielders now looks useless at right back when a couple years ago people largely considered him the best in the world at his position.
 
I really don't think so. Pogba has an attitude problem that no manager at United could have overcome.
 
With Cassiemero behind him and runners ahead he’d have been fantastic in deep midfield. He’s past his best now though and very injury prone so no big deal, but turn the clock back 3/4 years and yes he would’ve been superb.
 
Pogbas off-field engagements and antics have always overshadowed his on-field output. No manager could fix that. Glad hes not our problem anymore
 
TheReligion said:
I think it’s clear we were chasing De Jong this summer to be our deep lying playmaker and also a player who can drive forward with the ball to create openings in the middle of the pitch.

Whilst Eriksen has settled in to the DLP role very well we currently don’t have a number 6 that can burst forward with the ball, something which I feel is a pretty good quality to have in terms of playing out of a press.

Now we all know Pogba was a physical presence in the midfield, great range of passing, good vision and the ability to drive forward. Essentially what De Jong is (although weaker defensively). What seemed to let him down was the amount of time he often took on the ball and the reluctance to do things first time, along with tactical awareness of risk taking in specific areas of play.

Could Ten Hag have coached these missing pieces in to Pogba given we have already seen some improvements to much lesser talented players in the squad?

Its all speculative of course but you can’t help but wonder given this is our first real hands on manager who is known for improving not only the team but individuals.

Casemiro-Pogba-Eriksen/Bruno would have had a bit of everything on paper.
Click to expand...
Its obvious he would have. I love how his detractors love to pretend his years at Juve in tactically structured team and his winning the world cup with France never happened. Heck even his best season in a United shirt came under Jose Mourinho...But he is long gone now. So it doesn't matter
 
Last edited:
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
Its obvious he would have. I love how his detractors love to pretend his years at Juve in tactically structured team and his winning the world cup with France never happened. Heck even his best season in a United shirt came under Jose Mourinho...But he is long gone now. So it doesn't matter
Click to expand...

Giroud was also in that France team, it doesn’t make him a world class centre forward. I’m not saying Giroud was shit but nobody’s talking about his unrealised potential on the back of him winning a World Cup.

Also was Pogba really all that important to that Juve team, or was he just a fairly promising young player, with a good highlights real and who the caf had a vested interest in hyping because we were shit at the time and had Morgan Schneiderlin in midfield?

On the main question, no EtH would have struggled the same as every other manager, because Pogba lacks application, concentration and drive to be the best. He’d have been the exact same frustrating player he was under all of our previous managers.
 
The version we bought from Juve probably would’ve been, but maybe not the version we sent back.
 
Dec9003 said:
The version we bought from Juve probably would’ve been, but maybe not the version we sent back.
Click to expand...
why oh why is this even a discussion. Pogba deserves no positive recognition whatsoever. Fans have short memories what about the annual winter holidays ( i mean injury) so he doesn't have to play in the cold, poor fellow. Injured, misses the world cup ,court case, yeah Ten hag really need that circus.
 
BuzzKillington said:
Also was Pogba really all that important to that Juve team, or was he just a fairly promising young player, with a good highlights real and who the caf had a vested interest in hyping because we were shit at the time and had Morgan Schneiderlin in midfield?
Click to expand...

Of course he was, he averaged 45 games a season during his four years there. He was core to the team.

It never worked out here, the attitude wasn't right under Jose. We should have allowed Jose to get rid of him. If he didn't work under Mourinho he wouldn't have worked under ETH.
 
Mostly we seen Pogba mostly stink out the place, he had some real good periods no doubt about it.

Sometimes not his fault he was poor because he either injured which was a lot, or trying to get to form, or games would pass him by, and also he played under 3 managers, and always failed to kick on.


I can't imagine hag would have got anymore out of him. I'd imagine he been streaky as hell as we seen the whole time he was here.
 
Pogba is world class instagrammer and part time footballer, no point in coaching him.
 
If the idea is that ETH could have made him sensational in - roughly - the role Eriksen (his name is Eriksen, not Erikson, Ericson/sen, Ericsson/sen or Erickson/sen - I have no idea why that's so difficult) has played so far, then...who knows but probably not.

I have always said that Pogba is made for a genuine free, attacking role (with very limited defensive duties). And it's very hard to include that role, as a regular feature, in most contemporary systems.

However, he has done well (respectably well, not by any means sensational) in a more restricted role for France. So, yeah - I do imagine that a top coach could make him perform respectably well in some kind of more restricted central midfield role at club level too. But sensational? I doubt that.
 
Fit Pogba during his first few season at Manchester United would have been sensational. Passing and carrying the ball forward while Casemiro does most of the hardcore defensive midfielder stuff. That would have been a fantastic duo with Eriksen/Bruno as third midfield option.

The often injured and a lot slower Pogba from his latest Manchester United years would likely be okay. Still good passing but less carrying of the ball... and ofcourse the injuries.

Really liked Pogba as a player, liked him even more during his start of his second Manchester United period but he wasted the best years of his career (since he now is often injured and seemed to lost a bit of the physical ability he had before) at a club with a very negative manager in Mourinho and a totally clueless manager in Ole. Would have loved to see Pogba at his best playing for a modern manager in a Manchester United team. Signing a DM while Pogba was at Manchester United would have also been helpfull to him....
 
I think it would've been the exact opposite. Ten Hag is a manager who don't care what's your name or status, he'll bench you if you don't perform and run your socks off.

He's done it with Cristiano, Shaw and Maguire. Can you imagine Pogba running his socks off? At the first substitution the leaks about Pogba not being happy would've started.
 
Not this crap again. How do we utilize Pogba? Whats his best position? Does he find the weather a bit chilly in Manchester today?

The answer is no because he never was and he doesnt have a mentality of a world beater.
 
The Eriksen deal would have probably not happened, had Pogba had still been here.

In De Jong, ETH was looking for a player who would be able to play the short, decisive passes in the midfield or carry the ball through the lines. Eriksen was deployed deeper when we realized that Fred was a calamity in that role.

He wasn't looking for a Pogba type of midfielder to begin with. The latter is a better ball carrier and has excellent long-passing range, but, at this early stage, Eriksen's discipline and positional awareness are more valuable to the team.

I also don't know about Pogba playing as the most advanced player in a midfield of three since, despite his own weaknesses, Bruno makes good runs in the box which seems to be something that ETH wants. Pogba rarely did that. I remember that after the 2-3 win at the Etihad, Jose said that he doesn't know why he doesn't attempt these runs.

Anyways, good luck to him. There's still too much drama around United. We don't need more. Having such a low profile good player in Eriksen often goes unappreciated. Imagine if we were still playing Fred while Pogba's still rehabilitating in Dubai, and then we had to deal with the rift between him and his brother and the gossip about magic and shamans. No,as much as i admire Paul's skills, i'd take Eriksen.
 
TheRedDevil'sAdvocate said:
The Eriksen deal would have probably not happened, had Pogba had still been here.

In De Jong, ETH was looking for a player who would be able to play the short, decisive passes in the midfield or carry the ball through the lines. Eriksen was deployed deeper when we realized that Fred was a calamity in that role.

He wasn't looking for a Pogba type of midfielder to begin with. The latter is a better ball carrier and has excellent long-passing range, but, at this early stage, Eriksen's discipline and positional awareness are more valuable to the team.

I also don't know about Pogba playing as the most advanced player in a midfield of three since, despite his own weaknesses, Bruno makes good runs in the box which seems to be something that ETH wants. Pogba rarely did that. I remember that after the 2-3 win at the Etihad, Jose said that he doesn't know why he doesn't attempt these runs.

Anyways, good luck to him. There's still too much drama around United. We don't need more. Having such a low profile good player in Eriksen often goes unappreciated. Imagine if we were still playing Fred while Pogba's still rehabilitating in Dubai, and then we had to deal with the rift between him and his brother and the gossip about magic and shamans. No,as much as i admire Paul's skills, i'd take Eriksen.
Click to expand...
Large underestimation of ETH as a coach. Many were saying he wouldn’t use Bruno either because he lacks discipline etc.

ETH builds the team around the talents he has and he would have utilised Pogbas talents
 
By all accounts Ten Hag vetoed a push to offer Paul a new contract so I’m not sure what use he could have been. I honestly think it would be another AWB, Maguire, Fred sitting on the bench situation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.