The Pogba is ruining Mourinho denunciation thread

Carragher gave out a nice inteview. Some key points from there:

Carragher wrote:The solution, it is argued, is to play him in his favoured position to the left of a 4-3-3, where he enjoyed success at Juventus. I agree, and Mourinho has often used him there.

   He has more freedom to roam; there is more protection of United’s defence. Many believe Pogba can do for United what Kevin De Bruyne does for Manchester City to the right of a 4-3-3.

   Can he?

   Does Pep give De Bruyne freedom to roam where he likes? No.

   Does Pep absolve De Bruyne of defensive responsibility? No.

   If the best midfielder in the country is not indulged, why should it be different for Pogba?

   De Bruyne’s excellence this season is more than just as playmaker. In the last two seasons De Bruyne not only has more goals and assists than Pogba, he has made more tackles and more recovery runs than his United rival.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/02/23/paul-pogba-does-not-deserve-indulged-manchester-united-isnt/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I think he is right. Mourinho is severly let down by his own players right now. Unbelievable stuff really, needs a new team make over

This is another example of a pundit who is not very clever

There was absolutely 0 reason to create a comparison between De Bruyne and Pogba, pointless.

Pogba is not de Bruyne and will never be because he has different qualities.

It's just an interesting comparison because De Bruyne is beating Pogba statistically at ALL aspects. Defending, assisting etc. basically everything

KDB's also played like 50% more games than Pogba, a month or so ago Pogba had the same amount of assists as KDB with like 10 games less played.

No manager in the world has people making excuses for him as often as Mourinho.

It's quite frankly hilarious.

Defensively De Bruyne has pretty much the same amounts of tackles than Matic (47 vs 49). While having more Assist than Pogba and Matic combined (14 vs 10). Performing BETTER defensively, offensively, and tactical responsibilities. Kevin De Goat Complete Midfielder

Mr Nick09 wrote:This is another example of a pundit who is not very clever

There was absolutely 0 reason to create a comparison between De Bruyne and Pogba, pointless.

Pogba is not de Bruyne and will never be because he has different qualities.

Nick are you really saying "You shouldn't compare 2 CMs" ??

They play the same exact position (LCM vs RCM) in their preferred 3 midfield setup. Difference being one is tracking back and covering ever blade of grass when defending while the other is called Jogba by United fans. Pogba while having all the Physical tool and potential, he is coming up short.

I have my reservation of him ever reach his potential, would be surprised if he got to Yaya level in his prime.

Not the biggest fan of Pogba. In fact, I'm not a fan at all and have always thought he was quite overrated.

However, there's not doubt that Mourinho is sucking the life out of him and his negative tactics is hindering the Frenchman from living up to his full potential.

Carragher should remember that KDB, the same guy he's comparing Pogba to, looked like a clueless, lackluster schoolboy when he was playing under the orders of Mourinho.

I'm not making excuses for Pogba btw, quite the contray, he's partly to blame for his dip in form ever since he joined United. But It would also be unfair to him to dump the whole blame on him when there's a soul-sucking manager constantly stopping him from reaching the best version he can be.

nasir6371 wrote:Defensively De Bruyne has pretty much the same amounts of tackles than Matic (47 vs 49). While having more Assist than Pogba and Matic combined (14 vs 10). Performing BETTER defensively, offensively, and tactical responsibilities. Kevin De Goat Complete Midfielder

Mr Nick09 wrote:This is another example of a pundit who is not very clever

There was absolutely 0 reason to create a comparison between De Bruyne and Pogba, pointless.

Pogba is not de Bruyne and will never be because he has different qualities.

Nick are you really saying "You shouldn't compare 2 CMs" ??

They play the same exact position (LCM vs RCM) in their preferred 3 midfield setup. Difference being one is tracking back and covering ever blade of grass when defending while the other is called Jogba by United fans. Pogba while having all the Physical tool and potential, he is coming up short.

I have my reservation of him ever reach his potential, would be surprised if he got to Yaya level in his prime.

I think it's lazy journalism to compare a player that is struggling at United vs a player who is playing the best football of his life. It's just lazy.

and the point of the piece is to say that Pogba needs to step up, needs to be great, but he is not... ok.

In the abstract we can compare both players to discuss who is better but in this piece, there is no effort to analyze what his strengths are and how they are being underutilize by Mourinho. There is no analysis of how often mourinho has flipped his formation and has not settled his team into playing consistent football with consistent schemes in two years.

This to me is mourinho's fault, you can't spend 120 millions on a player without understanding what you are signing. I saw Pogba in Juventus for play great football for years, yes he was cocooned and played in an ideal role, but it worked and it delivered in performances over and over.

Truth of the matter is that Mou looks like he is finished and he is in the same situation he was with Ronaldo when he was in Madrid. Not to compare Pogba with CR, but Mourinho was telling Ronaldo to track back and to be defensive, and even criticized him in press conference for that. We won 3 CLs with smarter managers who figured out how to draw his strength and leverage his weaknesses.

Mou is lost, he is the real plague at Man Utd. I hope Pogba leaves and go to a club where his manager has a clue. And yes he needs to cut on his jabronis dabbing clown acts, but he is a great player. he doesnt claim to be the most complete midfielder, but he can perform at a high level with more support.

De Bruyne is not alone at City being great, it's an ecosystem, so if we have to compare both players, let's compare how both teams play to, because it's night and day. Give Pogba to City for two years and you will see the difference too. Pep is a *bleep* genius, and people dont say it enough. Mourinho on the other hand needs a team with 10 Fellaini and De gea (thank god he cant coach him), he needs 10 physical mindless idiots that will park the bus and run up the pitch on counters.

To be honest, I've seen countless people exaggerate Pogba's time at Juventus. He was good, great even but he was nowhere near a 120M player and I think that's where the problem lies. That much hype can destroy any player. Yes, he has unbelievable technique and physical traits, which makes his potential what he was really purchased for, but beyond that, its important not to glorify the past.

It was really only his final season at Juventus in which we actually relied on him to be 'that guy', I don't like seeing people re-write history. I've seen him at United, the main difference is this United team is much worse than Juventus, in just about every way and as such, he's scapegoated. He's not a player that dominates a match for 90 minutes, but he is the type that can break open a game with a piece of skill, an assist or a goal.

You're re writing history yourself tbh.

He was pretty meh in his first season and I was constantly criticising him for his decision making.

He was much improved in his 2nd season, took over games and actually made good decisions on the ball.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:You're re writing history yourself tbh.

He was pretty meh in his first season and I was constantly criticising him for his decision making.

He was much improved in his 2nd season, took over games and actually made good decisions on the ball.

Even so, it actually happens rarely here because there are competent posters but elsewhere I see all the Pogba-Juve experts discussing how absolutely dominant he was, he wasn't. He has incredible talent and you can see it but I feel people have a tendency to remember the past more fondly than it actually was, even though Pogba's Juve tenure was only a couple years ago.

My bottom line:

Luca isn't rewriting history, It was on his last season when he really became dominant. In the first 3 seasons he was good and then great but never the main guy in midfield, the mot importnat guy, or the guy to carry us in attack. He did become "that guy" only in his 4th season. That's when he became incredible, under Allegri's second season in a freer role combining with Dybala.

2012-15 Pogba wasn't a 120m player. With the idea of consistency and potential, 2015/16 was.

I think Mole is referring to me saying the difference between Pogba at Juve versus Pogba at United is the difference in the quality of the two teams, but he’s saying that Pogba had a lacklustre first season with United, in which I don’t disagree with, but I still believe in my point too (I think they can simultaneously exist).

It's a WC year... the way Mou wants him to play, he'd be dead by March or April. He's rebelling a bit and also managing himself for what he feels is a career defining event.

He had troubles at the Euro because he had injury/use issues so he was far far far from peak condition when the tournament came around. I think he had a 3 month thigh injury from Jan until April that season. Not enough time to find his rhythm and fitness for the Euro.

Also, Mourinho will run you over and ruin you if you let him.

Ah, yes, the famous 4 month thigh injury Pogba suffered in 2015-16 season where he played 50 games for Juve. I nearly forgot about that. I remember his 35 games in Serie A and playing more than 3,000 minutes, remarkable.

Did you miss my post about re-writing history?

I said "I think"...  i didn't check.  I remember one NT summer where he was literally on his last leg and another where he wasn't fit.  Back to back.  Didn't remember which was which.  Maybe it was the year after the Euro that he got hurt.

sportsczy wrote:I said "I think"... i didn't check. I remember one NT summer where he was literally on his last leg and another where he wasn't fit. Back to back. Didn't remember which was which.

That’s fair. He did look completely off in the Euro and I remember he took an extra long vacation and signed for United in the first week of August- just as the season was beginning so he had no pre season and after playing 50 games for Juve, he played every game for France in a tournament and went to the final. So that definitely was impactful on that first season.

We also have to remember how incubated he was at Juventus. He got to start behind Marchisio, Juve youth player, Pirlo, one of the most professional played of all time, and Vidal, an absolute beast. All with Conte who made him play simply, he wouldn’t even let him do back heels during matches. He did this for a couple seasons before Allegri, and each season his role grew substantially, but still slowly enough. Finally in his last season, when he wore the #10 and there was no more Vidal or Pirlo, and he had Dybala (in his first season) in front of him, we really saw a special player. We did before, but in a different respect.

you will notice that most players who play great in their clubs are "incubated" to a certain extent. A great collective always accentuate the greatness of a player. there is no exception to that rule, not even for Messi.

There are actually plenty of examples of exception to that rule, but I do agree that this is usually the case

Here comes Sports with the rationalizations

If Pogba had been playing badly for four entire years we would hear "he's been struggling with a niggling injury underneath a manager who wants to run him into the ground, and he's doing all of this while saving himself for WC 2042, I'm not really sure what you expect. Get him injury free and without a terrible manager and you'll see how good he is. I'm not even mentioning that his role in the midfield at this club is not what he's used to, and he needs higher energy midfielders next to him to be truly effective"

Cant wait to see how Mkhitaryan does at Arsenal, if he does better than at Man U, than it really would prove Mou's tactics ruins players like these, still could be so many other factors atm, gonna give it bit more time to show.

so do we now all agree that jogba is just a good player in a very long list of good players around the world.

no, he's clearly world class.

Firenze wrote:no, he's clearly world class.

a truly world class MF player can play anywhere in MF and do a very good job. jogba puts in some good showings on the left of a 3 but is useless if you move him over. forget about his defensive game it dont exist. his goal record from MF is not close to the worlds best and his assists seem to come in games that man u are winning by 3-4 goals and he dont show up in the big games. other than that he is fine.

CR had his best ever season under Mou. Saying all players are worse under Mou is clearly a lie