Mills: Pogba and Zlatan being dragged down by United

THE standard of Manchester United’s squad is dragging their star players, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba (pix), down to their current performance levels, according to former England defender Danny Mills. United were humbled 4-0 at the weekend in Jose Mourinho’s return to Chelsea, and the heavy defeat leaves his side five points off Premier League leaders Manchester City who they played earlier today. Mourinho has had to face plenty of criticism over United’s recent performances, and in particular the alarming slump in form of £89million (RM450.61m) world record signing Pogba. The Frenchman put in his best performance for the club in last week’s Europa League victory over Fenerbahce, but was once again deemed anonymous as United were embarrassed by Chelsea on Sunday. Ibrahimovic has not fared much better of late either, with his goal drought in the Premier League now stretching to five matches following his impressive start of four goals in three games.

But according to BBC pundit Mills, the two marquee summer signings are not to blame, and the fault instead lies among the rest of the squad who are not up to scratch to bring the best out of Pogba and Ibrahimovic.

“I thought Manchester United would be great this season,” Mills said on BBC Radio 5 Live. “I thought when Mourinho came in, an experienced manager (who’s) done all sorts in the Premier League, a fresh start (at) a big club, made some very, very good signings with some good players that were already there, a fantastic goalkeeper, I thought they’d be up there challenging and suddenly now it looks like a much bigger job than maybe we all thought.

“Zlatan, Pogba – I think they’re great players. They would be in my squad, if not in my team, every day of the week. I think there’s a lot of United players that maybe aren’t up to it and I think Zlatan and Pogba are maybe being dragged down by the standard of everybody else. “– The Independent