I’m a fan of Mourinho but he will end up the fall guy in this cold war with Pogba

SOMETHING has to give in the cold war between Jose Mourinho and Paul Pogba – and unless results improve, there will only be one fall guy.

I don’t understand why Mourinho has chosen a World Cup winner – and Manchester United’s biggest asset – as the wayward pupil who needs to be put in his place.

After Pogba’s triumph with France, surely all Mourinho had to do was to pat him on the back and tell him he’s the main man at Old Trafford.

Instead, he questioned Pogba’s attitude, but it’s Mourinho who now has the biggest questions to answer.

Why would you undermine a £90million player who’s just won the World Cup?

Who leaked the news that Pogba had been stripped of the vice-captaincy and would never be skipper of Manchester United again?

And when Mourinho gave Pogba short shrift on the training ground, in front of team-mates, surely he knew the cameras were there?

Right now it’s a shambles, on and off the field, and I can’t sit on the fence any longer. I’ve got to say who I think will last longer at United. And when push comes to shove in football, it’s usually the manager who is the fall guy.

As much as I’m a fan of Mourinho, I fear his time is running out.

Are United any closer to winning the title now than they were after two years under Louis van Gaal?

Is he getting the best out of the squad – not just Pogba, but Alexis Sanchez and Anthony Martial?

Has he laid solid foundations at the back, as he did at Chelsea with John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho?

The answers are depressingly uniform: No, no and no.

Where LVG spent £249m on new players and none was an unqualified success, Mourinho has spent £353m. That’s £600m in four years on new players: I’ve read it would cost £26m for United to sack Mourinho, which is almost loose change by comparison.

Only Romelu Lukaku and Nemanja Matic (above), who account for £105m of his outlay, look like value for money so far.

Here we are, only at the end of September, and realistically there is only one trophy Manchester United can hope to win this season. They are not going to win the title, they are not going to win the Champions League and they are out of the Carabao Cup. Only the FA Cup looks winnable. And for a club of Manchester United’s pedigree – probably the biggest club in the world – that is simply unacceptable.

If the Pogba conundrum was an isolated problem, Mourinho would still wield the power and influence to resolve it his way.

But Sanchez has looked nowhere near the player he was at Arsenal, Martial’s form has disappeared, the manager’s handling of Luke Shaw has been questionable and surely he doesn’t need to reel off stats about Marcus Rashford to justify his handling of the England striker. We are talking about Mourinho, winner of 20 trophies, one of the greatest managers of all time.

He doesn’t have to justify himself to anyone. For me, the billion-dollar question is this: Does the board believe Mourinho can get the best out of Pogba, Sanchez, Rashford and Martial and take Manchester United back to the top?

If the answer is no, the writing is on the wall.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s return to Old Trafford last Saturday, after his massive health scare in May, should have motivated United to put on a great show for him.

Instead they were lukewarm, mediocre and uninspired.

Pogba came out with his “attack, attack, attack” message after the 1-1 draw with Wolves because he knows that’s what the fans want to see.

I can’t wait for two United legends of the Fergie era, Rio Ferdinand and Paul Scholes, to appear as guests on my Saturday Morning Savage show on BT Sport because their verdicts on Pogba v Mourinho will be instructive.

But from my perspective, Mourinho’s treatment of Pogba since the World Cup has been baffling.

If he is trying to humiliate the player, or show who’s the boss, it’s a pointless exercise. It should all be kept in-house, not a soap opera played out in front of the cameras.

Don’t get me wrong; Pogba is not blameless. His performances have blown too hot and cold for a £90m player. His agent, Mino Raiola, has also stirred the pot.

But Mourinho may be interested to know the result of a poll I conducted on Twitter, which attracted 29,000 votes: Around 61 per cent of fans think Pogba will last longer at Old Trafford than the 39 per cent who back Jose. But it would not surprise me if neither Pogba nor Mourinho was at the club at the start of next season.