Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Everton’s Brands new look
the £89million star that if he puts the work in during midweek training sessions at Carrington it will help him to produce more special moments on match-days.
Mourinho said: “I tell you exactly what I told him.
“And that is that I don’t expect you to be man of the match every week, I don’t expect you to score two goals every week.
“But I do expect you to be consistent in a certain level.
“So, if you ask me, ‘Am I expecting Paul now to be man of the match every week?’ No. Do I expect him to score goals every match? No.
“But I do expect Paul to keep a certain stability and not to have the good match then the so-so match, and the bad match. And I think that is the challenge he has to put to himself.”
Apart from stand-out displays at Arsenal and Manchester City, Pogba has struggled to justify his megaprice tag this season.
And the Frenchman was stunned when Mourinho chose 21-year-old Academy product Scott McTominay ahead of him in some games. But Mourinho was full of praise for Pogba’s second-half show against City.
Mourinho added: “I think he has to try to keep that level of stability and from that stability of course will appear the special match with the special performance like happened against City.
“But he has to really work for that stability. And to go for that stability, the first thing is stability at a training level, stability during the working week.
“And over the past two or three weeks I’m really happy with him.” EVERTON owner Farhad Moshiri is bringing in super-agent Mino Raiola to mastermind a Goodison revolution.
Moshiri already has an agreement in principle for PSV Eindhoven’s Marcel Brands to come in as sporting director, and he now wants Raiola’s expertise as one of football’s top deal-makers.
The shake-up is set to include the departure of boss Sam Allardyce, even though he will have 12 months left on the £6million-a-year contract he sealed last November.
Everton’s current director of football Steve Walsh will also leave.
Brands – regarded as one of Holland’s best talent-spotters – is currently sporting director at PSV where he has been responsible for buying players like Gini Wijnaldum, Dries Mertens and Kevin Strootman.
After a 17-year playing career, the Dutchman moved into recruitment and helped Louis van Gaal build a squad at unfashionable AZ Alkmaar that was good enough to be crowned Dutch champions in 2009.
He has long been close to Raiola, whose stable includes Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Mario Balotelli and
Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Although Moshiri’s first full season at the
Goodison helm has not gone to plan, he wants the pair to realise his dream of taking Everton into the Champions League.
The 62-year-old billionaire backed Ronald Koeman with £200m in the transfer market last summer and is prepared to spend big again – even though Brands has a reputation for building teams on small budgets.