Official: Pogba returns to Manchester United

Needs to be doing a hell of a lot more. Disappointing performance from him, in his "favoured position".

I'm always right on scouting department.  

Like I said, a dribble first player looking to make a living in physical EPL... This is going to end well.

What does being dribble first have to do with anything? Plenty of really strong dribble first players have done really well in the PL. Pogba is just overrated in general.

Curtinho wrote:What does being dribble first have to do with anything? Plenty of really strong dribble first players have done really well in the PL. Pogba is just overrated in general.

i don't remember a dribble merchant midfielder from PL. Feel free to prove me wrong.

I think people need to realise that pogba is just not that great a player. he is good but people think he can walk on water and that's why people end up disappointed

Adit wrote:

Curtinho wrote:What does being dribble first have to do with anything? Plenty of really strong dribble first players have done really well in the PL. Pogba is just overrated in general.

i don't remember a dribble merchant midfielder from PL. Feel free to prove me wrong.

I guess it depends on what you mean by midfielder, or dribble merchant. Guys like Hazard, Coutinho, Silva, Modric, N'Zogbia, Dembele, Barkley, Sissoko, Wilshere, Sanchez, Mahrez, Payet, etc. have all had varying degrees of success being very reliant on beating their men/dribbling. That's just in the last 5 or so years too.

I'd like to add that dribble-first Dembele was one of the best CM's in the league last year.

Curtinho wrote:

Adit wrote:

Curtinho wrote:What does being dribble first have to do with anything? Plenty of really strong dribble first players have done really well in the PL. Pogba is just overrated in general.

i don't remember a dribble merchant midfielder from PL. Feel free to prove me wrong.

I guess it depends on what you mean by midfielder, or dribble merchant. Guys like Hazard, Coutinho, Silva, Modric, N'Zogbia, Dembele, Barkley, Sissoko, Wilshere, Sanchez, Mahrez, Payet, etc. have all had varying degrees of success being very reliant on beating their men/dribbling. That's just in the last 5 or so years too.

Should have been more specific. I obviously meant centre midfield dribblers.

Most of them you mentioned aren't dribble depend like Pogba. They use it as last resort.May be Coutinho counts but how effective is he anyway. Always thought he is in the wrong league.

What is he great at in order to warrant the 120m tag ? Because every time I watched him I've never seen anything special. Gundogan is a much better player, and City got him for 100m less Talk about good business

Valkyrja wrote:What is he great at in order to warrant the 120m tag ? Because every time I watched him I've never seen anything special. Gundogan is a much better player, and City got him for 100m less Talk about good business

Valkyrja wrote:What is he great at in order to warrant the 120m tag ?

Dabbing?

chemicalboy99 wrote:

Valkyrja wrote:What is he great at in order to warrant the 120m tag ?

Dabbing?

And the pink haircut

As much as this is entertaining, you have to realise Pogba does need time to settle in. PL isn't how he left it when he was 17. He will start producing performances after a while when United have settled. They do have pretty much a new and different team this season.

It's better to judge him by Christmas

RealGunner wrote:As much as this is entertaining, you have to realise Pogba does need time to settle in. PL isn't how he left it when he was 17. He will start producing performances after a while when United have settled. They do have pretty much a new and different team this season.

It's better to judge him by Christmas

The judgement is already in from Scholesly, BT's pundit wizard. To get the very best out of Pogba all United need to do is spend another £200M on Kroos and Modric.

£200M + Pogba for Kroos and Modric

lol the last thing i want is to be associated with Scholes' punditry ffs.

It's not about the players next to Pogba. It's about the right role. Carrick-Pogba would work twice as better as Fellaini-Pogba imo.

Pogba is not a Mourinho player honestly. Mourinho thinks Pogba is his Essien or Cambiasso when he isn't.

Valkyrja wrote:What is he great at in order to warrant the 120m tag ? Because every time I watched him I've never seen anything special. Gundogan is a much better player, and City got him for 100m less Talk about good business

Let's see how many games Gundogan manages to stay healthy.

As I've stated, this guys tool set can be crafted into something amazing, and already is a solid player. Just has a crap team/system around him. I bet if you were to swap Gundogan and Pogba and place them in the others team, I bet Gundogan would be looking like a flop at United under Mou and Pogba would look like a god right now under Pep.

Pogba as a CAM. What's next, is Mourinho going to play him as a central defender?

Pogba come home, Allegri will surely play you as a b2b left central midfielder...

Take those 100m spectacles off and Pogba is doing just fine as an academy player whose been called up during injury crisis imo

lads come on now where can the most expensive super star in the world play. he cant play this system he cant play that system. can 30 yards difference on a pitch mean he is crap or world class.the guy is a 100mil cm player ffs.

Blah, Blah, Blah...

juve_gigi wrote:Blah, Blah, Blah...

that's all well and good but you didn't answer the question. so are people saying with the right players. in the right system. and the right tactics pogba is great. other than that he is a scrub.

RealGunner wrote:As much as this is entertaining, you have to realise Pogba does need time to settle in. PL isn't how he left it when he was 17. He will start producing performances after a while when United have settled. They do have pretty much a new and different team this season.

It's better to judge him by Christmas

He'll never improve in the role he's in ( not to standard we expect anyway), he's being set up to fail completely.

A coach's #1 job is to set players up in roles to help them succeed and minimize what ever it is they are bad at. Mourinho quite clearly here is doing none of those things.

What's more i don't think he ever will.

Unique wrote:

juve_gigi wrote:Blah, Blah, Blah...

that's all well and good but you didn't answer the question. so are people saying with the right players. in the right system. and the right tactics pogba is great. other than that he is a scrub.

He was great at Juve. But then he had world class midfielders surrounding him all the time in Pirlo, Vidal and Marchisio. He also was allowed to play alomost exclusively in his favoured left central midfield position in a 3-5-2 which allowed him to press forward whenever he wanted. He basically had a free role at Juve to play box to box.

However, in the biggest games, especially in CL competition, he was frequently outshone by the likes of Vidal, Morata, Cuadrado and Dybala. Even Marchisio played a bigger role in some games. I think Pogba is not a finished product yet. if he stayed at Juve another 2 years with the right coach and within the right system he would have reached his peak and would have most likely fixed his deficiencies.

With Mourinho and ManU and playing as a DM in a double pivot with Fellaini as his partner in a 4-2-3-1 he is doomed to fail. I would still give him a few more months to acclimate himself to his new team, new surroundings, new coach and new system. However, at this point it looks like Pogba will struggle to ever reach his full potential. Or maybe he already peaked at Juve and what you see is what you get? Don't know at this point. All I know is right now he is a shadow of the player he was with Juve.

Unique wrote:lads come on now where can the most expensive super star in the world play. he cant play this system he cant play that system. can 30 yards difference on a pitch mean he is crap or world class.the guy is a 100mil cm player ffs.

I'll give a serious answer.

It has been 4 games. Thats right, only 4 games for United. What kind of judgement is this after less than 1 month of football at a new club? And, United fans come in here, he actually played well in the first 2! He flopped against City when his whole team flopped, and today in EL from what I hear (didn't watch the game).

Pogba has had a gran total of 2 bad games. That's nothing. He is a 23 year old player that spent the last 4 years playing on the left of a midfield 3 in the same club. His entire experience in senior football, from when he was 18, came from playing as a LCM at Juve with the same guys. Now he moves to a new club with drastically different players, coach, system and league. So he is being skinned for 2 bad games?

Give some time to adapt ffs. He is young player that developed in a wonderful environment for him and thrived. Now its a new experience. No doubt he will come through, it just takes time.

For those who didn't watch him regularly at Juve (90% of the people here) Pogba moved from a much more conservative role (which he had under Conte and 1 season of Allegri) to being the main man in terms of creativity for Juve last season. Before that, Pirlo was obviously the main director of things. So he went from a very "traditional" mezzala (the side midfielder in a mid 3) to being dumped with all the responsibility of creating play for us and taking the 10 jersey. For the first 2 months Marchisio and Khedira were injured so he played with scrubs in the mid, that plus his new role made him flop. When the team settled and he understood his role more, he exploded and became ridiculously effective. He had his best season by far in this new role that he had just been put on. Just a pleasure to watch. Everyone that called him bad those first 2 months was right, he was bad at that point. But he turned it around and became much better than in any season before.

The same can happen at United. Stop judging players after 2 bad weeks.

As gigi said, Pogba needs complimentary players around him. Evra gave him all kinds of cover and was handy enough on the ball and passing to put Pogba in the right place at the right time. You could see them talk to each other in games.