POGBA STILL WANTS UNITED EXIT
MIDFIELDER TELLS TEAM-MATES HE STILL WANTS OUT
PAUL Pogba has told United teammates he still wants to leave the club in the summer.
The midfielder, who has started six times this season due to two separate ankle injuries, is determined to end his time at Old Trafford, with Real Madrid and Juventus still interested.
Dressing room sources have told M.E.N. Sport Pogba’s ‘head is not currently at the club’ and the majority of players believe it is in United’s best interests he moves on. The Frenchman outlined his desire for a ‘new challenge’ in June and his agent Mino Raiola claimed he was ‘in the process’ of engineering a transfer that never materialised. More recently, Raiola said he was ‘sorry’ he could not move Pogba to Madrid and that he ‘wouldn’t bring anyone else’ to United.
The Reds valued Pogba at around £180m last summer but he has technically entered the last 18 months of his contract.
United have the option of an additional year to tie Pogba to the club until 2022 but the length of his deal, as well as the troublesome ankle injuries, are causing the Frenchman’s re-sale value to dwindle.
Pogba, who had surgery on his ankle, has had the cast removed from his leg, though a return against Chelsea in United’s next game on February 17 appears unlikely after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said the player would not travel with the squad to their warm weather training camp on Marbella on Saturday.
MARCUS Rashford could not have mistaken the Gorton growl that pierced the air. “Stop f ****** arguing,” Nicky Butt shouted.
Rashford, just 18 and named in his maiden first-team matchday squad at Watford four days earlier, was bickering with Callum Gribbin in a chastening Uefa Youth League thrashing by PSV Eindhoven at Leigh Sports Village.
Exactly three months later, Anthony Martial tweaked his hamstring in the warm-up and Rashford was rushed down the tunnel for his starting orders against Midtjylland.
“From when I came back to the club you knew straight away there was this young boy who was very well liked from all of the coaches,” Butt tells M.E.N. Sport.
“You get your eyes on him and you go, ‘wow, he’s going to be immensely quick.’ You see his natural physique. He was beanpole but now he’s filling out.
“When he got his chance under (Louis) van Gaal and he scored a couple of goals, that was it, you’re not getting him back.
“The reserve team lads were like, ‘he’s never gonna touch us, he’s going straight to the first-team.’ Some players... you give them a little bit of a sniff and they grab it all and swallow it all up. And that’s it.”
Butt is back on the training pitches in his role as the head of first-team development at United after three-and-a-half years of running the academy and, as he puts it, back in his comfort zone – managing the prodigies aspiring to become first-team players.
In the academy building, artistic images of Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba adorn the walls. Perhaps deliberately, the Rashford shot is of his celebration following the March 2016 derby he decided.
Pogba and Lingard were among the last United recipients of FA Youth Cup winner’s medals in 2011 and Rashford never got close in these lean years.
In his last appearance in the competition, United were humiliated 5-1 at Altrincham by Chelsea in January 2016. The club have not reached the quarter-finals in eight years. Tonight they face Leeds at Old Trafford in the fifth round.
It is the first meaningful meeting between the clubs since the September 2011 League Cup third round, and the first Leeds trip to Old Trafford since they inflicted one of the most embarrassing defeats on Sir Alex Ferguson in the January 2010 FA Cup tie. Leeds were in League One back then.
United have held several meetings this week, led by the Under-18 coach Neil Ryan, to educate the players on the tribalism between the sides.
“We don’t go over the top on it but I’m sure they know the rivalry,” Butt says. “Especially the ones that are local boys or the lads coming from surrounding areas.
“Obviously the French and Dutch boys, you may have to speak to them more about it, but more importantly they know what it’s like to play for Man United and what it’s like to play in the Youth Cup now.
And it’s at Old Trafford, which is a bigger boost for them.
“I’ve been to many Leeds games from when I was younger with my uncle, my cousin and my dad and I went to Elland Road a good few times as a younger kid. I didn’t need explaining what the rivalry is! “But it’s a healthy rivalry. Leeds are a great club, a massive club and I can’t wait for them to get back into the Premier League.”
Butt looks for leaders at youth team level. “We’ve got Will Fish, we’ve got Teden (Mengi), we’ve got Charlie McCann, we’ve got people that lead in different ways. “Leaders are always looked at like a Roy Keane, a Steve Bruce, a Bryan Robson, those kind of verbal, real aggression, real leaders. And then you’ve got leaders like Paul Scholes or David Beckham or Ryan Giggs, who are quiet but really lead by example of how they play and how they work hard.
“We’ve got the old-fashioned leaders, if you like, who are going to talk to the players and drive the team. Hannibal (Mejbri) is a leader. The way he plays his football is 100mph, he’s non-stop running up and down.
“You’ve got people that are quiet, who play at the back, who are leaders because of how they approach the game.
“Reece Devine has played a lot of games in the reserves this season and has become a real driving force,
When Rashford got his chance under Van Gaal, that was it – you’re not getting him back
Nicky Butt
so there are all different leaders, there isn’t just one.”
France youth international Mejbri, 17, joined from Monaco in the summer for a fee rising to 10m euro and was fast-tracked to the Under-23s in September. With a talismanic Frenchman leading a Youth Cup charge, the Pogba comparisons have already begun.
“He’s got his own path,” Butt stresses. “We make sure when we sign players we always speak to the parents and give them an example of all different ways of getting into Man United’s first team.
“You’ve got the Rashford journey, where you know they’re going to get there and...” He clicks his fingers. “It just happens and they never come back.
“You’ve got Jesse Lingard, who had four or five different loan spells and they end up getting there, and then and you’ve got maybe Scott McTominay or now Brandon Williams, who are the underdogs who keep driving and keep going and end up becoming a first-team player.
“Hannibal is different to Paul (Pogba) when Paul was a youth team player. He’s not as powerful, he isn’t as dominant, he’s a different kind of player but we all know about the talent he’s got. But he’s a young man who’s come to a new country who needs a bit of time. He’s a very, very talented boy but he’s still very immature. He’s still a baby, he’s just 17. He needs to build up his size and build up his physicality. There’s a long way to go yet.”
Butt prefers his hands-on current role to the more administrative academy post now occupied by Nick Cox.
He has spent January sorting loans for Ethan Hamilton, George Tanner and Cameron BorthwickJackson – all now at Greater Manchester clubs – with Les Parry, the player performance manager.
They have already started the process of identifying loan locations for youngsters in the summer.
“The hardest thing at this club I remember when I was getting through is you get to the first team and you’ve been flying from a certain age,” Butt explains. “When you get to that first-team level you’re not one of the best players.
“You’re one of the boys that are just starting the ladder again, you’ve got your own little Everest, if you like. You’ve got to start all over again.
“And you’ve got to get your head around, ‘I’m not going to be playing every week.’ You’ve got world-class players ahead of you, people that have played 50 international games, won major trophies who are ahead of you, you’re not going to jump back in. That’s a really hard dynamic.
“You’re missing bits, you’re not playing every week – which you have been doing for four or five years – because the first team want you. But you’re not playing firstteam. And that’s when some players rush and try to get out on loan too soon.
“Because they miss the way of becoming a Manchester United person. You need to be in that dressing room, you need to know how they live, how they train, how they recover, how they rest. And if you go straight out on loan you can miss that. It’s a really strange dynamic in that bubble of a Jimmy Garner, a Dylan Levitt, Brandon (Williams) to a point, Mason Greenwood, Angel Gomes, Tahith Chong.
“It’s a hard place they are in, at the minute, because you want that final little hurdle to be playing every week but you’re not going to be. It’s how you manage that and keep them where they are.
“I want players to be here 10 or 15 years playing in the first-team and keep the traditions going.”
Butt is not averse to screaming and shouting.
United host Leeds in the FA Youth Cup fifth round tonight at Old Trafford (7pm). Tickets are free through the United website.