Lovren and Jordan Henderson fire Reds to hard-earned win
Pogba, who re-joined United from Juventus last month, was anonymous once again for Mourinho’s men as they succumbed to a 1-0 loss in Rotterdam just five days after the damaging derby setback against Manchester City at Old Trafford on Saturday.
United travel to Watford on Sunday knowing talk of a crisis will snowball if they fail to overcome Walter Materazzi’s side but Mourinho, who did his level best not to discuss Pogba’s fortunes, insists he is not concerned by the midfielder’s stuttering form.
The 53-year-old said: “The world record player is always a question that will be open until somebody else breaks the record. I think there are clubs who paid £20m, £30m, £40m and that is a bigger deal than what Man United have paid for Paul.
“Because you make a relation between the club’s revenue and the money. I just want Paul to forget that and play his football.”
13 Premier League clubs broke their transfer records this summer as the English game bathed in £5.13bn of television rights money. Less decorated clubs such as Crystal Palace (Christian Benteke, £32m), Everton (Yannick Bolasie, £28m) and West Ham United (Andre Ayew, £20.5m) parted with sums previously unavailable to them.
But Mourinho is not prepared to accept that Pogba’s early season strife is down to the weight of expectation and instead highlighted a number of mitigating circumstances which should be considered instead.
The two- time Chelsea manager added: “He had no pre-season and played in the Euro 2016 final. It is normal after the first game (against Southampton) – which he played well – for him to have a little decrease but I have a lot of trust in him.”
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