JOSE TELLS POGBA: NO ONE PLAYER IS BIGGER THAN CLUB
JOSE MOURINHO has told Paul Pogba that ‘no player is bigger than Manchester United’ and it is his job to defend the club’s reputation.
Manager Mourinho tried to end his feud with Pogba after it erupted publicly this week and confirmed that United’s £89million record signing will return to his team at West Ham this lunchtime.
But United’s boss put Pogba in his place once again, having already stripped him of the vice- captaincy and given the player a dressing down in a televised training-ground row.
‘Manchester United is bigger than anyone and I have to defend that,’ said Mourinho yesterday. ‘No player is bigger than the club.’
Mourinho confirmed that the decision to relieve Pogba of captaincy duties had been discussed with his staff over several weeks during which the France midfielder confirmed that he wants to join Barcelona.
After Pogba seemed to criticise Mourinho’s tactics in an interview after last week’s draw with Wolves, he was called to a meeting at Carrington on Tuesday morning and relieved of the vice-captaincy.
‘I explained to the people that had to know — the squad and especially Paul,’ added Mourinho. ‘I always analyse a player as a player. When a player is captain, I analyse from the perspective of player and captain.
‘After weeks of analysing and changing opinions with my coaching staff, we (decided) Paul is just a player and not a captain.
‘The relationship between player and manager is good but it’s not a relationship between manager and one of the captains any more.
‘Nobody trained better on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Tomorrow he plays, so end of story.’
The falling-out between Pogba and his manager was highlighted in training on Wednesday when Mourinho confronted the player for posting a video of himself laughing with Andreas Pereira and Luke Shaw during the Carabao Cup defeat by Derby County the previous night.
Mourinho tried to play down the incident yesterday by saying that far more serious arguments break out at Carrington and that it was unfortunate the row was caught by Sky Sports in a 15-minute segment of the training session.
‘I’m happy you don’t come here more times — you would get much more than that,’ said Mourinho. ‘Much louder, much more aggressive — you’d get a lot. So I’m happy that the rules are 15 minutes.
‘I can’t tell you (what was said). You made an incredible story out of 15 minutes of open training session.’
Asked why he challenged Pogba amid suggestions that it was all staged for the media, Mourinho countered: ‘I don’t care about the cameras. What confrontation?’