Pogba’s only a winner on social media
MARTIN SAMUEL’S BRILLIANT COLUMN
IT USED to be easy to measure success at Manchester United. It was finite, it was tangible; basically, it shined. Trophies — big, bold and very visible.
In Sir Alex Ferguson’s era, success equated to the simplest of yardsticks — what the club won. Success was paraded on the pitch, then placed on show in a glittering trophy room. Success could quite literally be touched.
And throughout, Manchester United grew. Old Trafford was expanding in size, becoming the biggest club stadium in Britain, the commercial wealth rose, as did United’s reach. It became politically, as well as economically, powerful. It influenced at the top, those who run the game, and across football’s bottom line, too.
United grew on social media, had followers around the world, measured in millions in markets across continents. Yet one was a product of the other. Manchester United’s financial success was the consequence of sporting achievement.
They got the money, they got the fans, they got the prestige, they got the business, because of those shiny objects in the trophy room. It was always, at heart, a football club judged, as elite clubs are, by one standard — what you win.
And then Ferguson stood down and United changed. Paper-minded males began using different measures of achievement. The trophy room wasn’t seeing as much action as it used to. The prizes were less grand than in the old days. But that didn’t matter. Manchester United were winning elsewhere.
They won the prize for social media activity, they won the cup for rising share price, won the trophy for lucrative shirt-sleeve sponsorship, for best kit deal, for ruling Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Speaking with investors following the release of second- quarter reports for 2017-18, executive vicechairman Ed Woodward framed the Alexis Sanchez transfer in solely commercial terms.
‘Sanchez has set a new January signing record in terms of shirt sales, three times the previous record,’ he said. ‘This trade generated some interesting social media statistics. It was the biggest United post on Instagram with two million likes and comments, the most shared United Facebook post ever, the most retweeted United post ever and the hashtag #Alexis7 was the No 1 trending topic on Twitter worldwide. To put that into context, the announcement posts generated 75 per cent more interaction than the sale of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain.’ Sanchez had been filmed playing
Glory, Glory, Man Utd on the piano for his launch. How lovely.
Subsequently, however, Sanchez has been hopeless for United, a shadow of the player who was Arsenal’s main man. He last scored a Premier League goal in March and retains his place on reputation. Do United care?
Does it matter that, having taken him from under the noses of Pep Guardiola and Manchester City, with a pay packet in the region of £400,000 a week, he has not advanced United’s chances of winning football matches one iota?
Does this even register any more, now the club talks of its playing staff in terms of social media impact? Never mind the quality, feel the tweets. Woodward spoke of United’s historical trophy count when more figures were announced this week, but his heart never seems in that part of the business.
He is happier counting Instagram likes. No wonder the situation with Paul Pogba is out of control. Neither side are emerging from
this well right now. Jose Mourinho’s man-management skills are open to question, while Pogba is disruptive and high maintenance and is not performing at a level that warrants indulgence.
he is not a positive influence on his acolytes either, with andreas Pereira, who cannot get in the team, turning up for training in a flashy white Bentley. This isn’t a good look for any of them.
Yet United come out worst of all. By losing sight of what matters, by seeming to value commercial sideshows, they have allowed Pogba to feel bigger than the club and anyone in it. Bigger than the manager, more important than his teammates. he gives the ball, and the game, away against Wolves with careless play, yet still feels empowered to make veiled criticisms of Mourinho in the aftermath.
Why? he has a profile to maintain, followers, a global audience — and the club love him for it.
If the manager is the collateral damage, if team discipline is to be thrown under the bus, then the club need to tell Mourinho how it is. The most recent figures give Pogba approaching 30million social media followers and that monster must be fed.
so, on Tuesday, as Manchester United were exiting the Carabao Cup at home to Derby, Pogba posted a clip of himself laughing while watching the match with Pereira and luke shaw. he was dressed in a white tracksuit and gold-rimmed glasses, every inch the modern celebrity, and left with United losing 2-1. The post went out at 10.28pm, by which time United’s dismal fate was confirmed. Mourinho, understandably, thought the whole scene disrespectful and reprimanded him.
Pogba claims the club wifi failed — which, having worked there, is most certainly possible — and the timing was accidental. ‘Why can’t I do nothing,’ Pogba replied in a training ground spat captured on camera. ‘I come here and do nothing. That is my problem.’
Indeed it is, but not in the way he believes. Pogba has done, pretty much, nothing since arriving at Old Trafford — but has been allowed to think he is making a significant contribution simply by being highly marketable.
his football has been disappointing. Good spells, the odd good game, but nothing memorable. Nobody was expecting Cristiano Ronaldo, but Pogba has had nowhere near the influence of central midfielders like Roy Keane or steven Gerrard, even James Milner and Jordan henderson in the last year.
EveRYONe can recall games that Manchester United or liverpool would not have won without those players. Where is Pogba’s magnum opus for Manchester United? We know he can do it because he did for France at the World Cup this summer.
Yet as Mourinho pointed out, he was largely free from distraction and outside influence there. Pogba was in a camp and focused in a way he never seems to be for United — and maybe the French federation got their priorities right, too. They didn’t allow the professional and personal to be clouded, didn’t allow the players to believe there was any other way of winning, bar lifting the trophy.
england were brilliant on social media at the World Cup. entertaining, connecting, they used it to help build a relationship with fans again. Yet that is england’s level now. They’re in recovery, they’re not contenders. France were in it to win it. and if you win it, that Facebook stuff just happens.
stormzy started it. Mourinho was apparently less than impressed with the way United and the commercial operation around Pogba handled his return to Old Trafford.
The club can do nothing about his sponsor, adidas, releasing a video of Pogba and grime artist stormzy — although it seemed right up United’s street, with its crossover power and stormzy in a United shirt, despite being born near selhurst Park — but Mourinho would have held them responsible for the rest of the hoopla.
The #Pogback hashtag, the clips of him arriving by private jet, the filmed tour of the training ground, even the unusual 12.35am release of the news — Mourinho thought it all served to make the player seem bigger than the club. Now, when he acts like it — his playing of loud music on the team bus is a particular irritant, apparently — is it really any wonder?
and this is where United have it wrong. For success, old-fashioned success of a type that is valued by traditional football men like Ferguson and, yes, Mourinho will trump a one- off viral video of sanchez at the piano every time.
Pogba has 30m social media followers, United have 104.5m, achieved by becoming the biggest club in the world.
and how did they become the biggest club in the world? With trophies. Ferguson’s, mostly.
But when Mourinho and United won the europa league — UeFa’s least compelling competition — it attracted a global audience of more than 160m. a broadcast of a Manchester United-liverpool game gets more eyes worldwide than the Champions league final.
United are a draw. and the only reason they think they need stormzy and the Pogbunny and sanchez tinkling their ivories is because they have lost sight of what made them captivating in the first place. Pogba has forgotten what is important — but, more worryingly, his club has, too.