Pogba needs guidance at United, says ex-Red Zlat
PAUL Pogba needs guidance, according to his former teammate Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Swede joined the Reds in the same transfer window as the Frenchman and admitted that despite having the same management company, he didn’t know the midfielder.
Pogba has been heavily criticised since rejoining United in 2016, but Ibrahimovic believes he is a ‘fantastic footballer’ and the partnership he struck up with him made the 37-year-old feel like Benjamin Button.
“I had a good time because I got to know everyone, I was the mature guy with all these guys who were not mature,” Ibrahimovic said.
“Paul Pogba, I had never played with him before and I didn’t know him as a person.
“We have the same management and when I got to know him I got to find a fantastic person and a fantastic footballer, but someone who needs to be guided.
“He is a professional guy that works every game and never misses training or a game.
“Those are all the things that people do not see, you only get judged by what you can see on television or the 90 minutes in the stadium, that’s where you have to perform.
“When you click with someone it just clicks. The connection on the field was amazing, we helped each other very well, I needed him and he needed me. The first year at United we had a fantastic year.
“They made me feel like Benjamin Button. I was getting younger and younger, then unfortunately I got my injury.” MEMPHIS Depay recently posed in a 1997 United home shirt with one of his number seven predecessors’ name printed on the back.
‘Woke up feeling like Beckham!’ Memphis exclaimed. If only he played like him for United.
Memphis never converted a free-kick and he seldom provided a pinpoint cross. United cut their £9.7m losses after only 18 months, yet Memphis is still peculiarly popular with United’s online demographic.
All it took last week was a Panenka penalty against France for United fans to wonder whether the club inserted a buy-back clause into Memphis’ Lyon contract. They did, but they almost certainly won’t use it.
Should Alexis Sanchez concede defeat in his efforts to resemble a fleet-footed footballer again, he will always have France to go to, a kind of graveyard haven for Louis van Gaal misfits. Angel di Maria and Radamel Falcao have excelled in Ligue 1 – and so has Memphis.
With the exception of Monaco two seasons ago, Ligue 1 has become a monopoly during Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari ownership – it is as much of a procession as Formula 1 used to be with Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari and barely qualifies as competitive sport.
Neymar and Kylian Mbappe sullied their reputations by moving there last year, as Falcao did in 2013.
The irony is it is a region United are exploring meticulously and the man they have to thank for that is none other than Memphis.
United posted a job application for a French scout earlier this year to unearth ‘world-class’ players after former French scout David Friio departed, partly because United felt the French territory was not scoured thoroughly enough for forwards.
Friio was furious the Reds failed to retain Pogba in 2012 but United felt burnt by signing Memphis from PSV Eindhoven for £26.3m at a time Mbappe, Thomas Lemar and Ousmane Dembele were emerging and Antoine Griezmann was about to break into the stratosphere.
United did at least mine Anthony Martial from the gold rush. The Reds were prepared to invest up to £34m for Memphis. That fee looks relatively frugal in the postNeymar climate and perceptions of fees are so blase now the £75m Romelu Lukaku has not necessarily stung Old Trafford. But the emphasis from the United hierarchy, in the wake of the Memphis mistake, is to prioritise ‘established’ reinforcements over potential, hence why the executive vicechairman Ed Woodward has been so staunch with his ‘worldclass’ and ‘top players’ rhetoric in recent conference calls. If Memphis were to somehow return, maybe only his friend Luke Shaw’s arms would be open. “What you see is what you get with him,” one United player said of Memphis. Another assessed him more scathingly: “He just did not seem to care.”
Memphis had a solitary start under Mourinho at Northampton in the League Cup and so underwhelmed in his eight appearances in 2016-17 some team-mates were amazed he was chosen to come on as United scoured for a break- SamuelLuckhurst