POG: DEVILS NEED THE DETAILS
PAUL POGBA last night cranked up pressure on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer by insisting that something has got to change at Manchester United.
United have now picked up just one point from their last three Premier League games – and their title dream now hangs by a thread as they go into a period which will see them face Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester City and Chelsea.
Solskjaer admitted “something has to give” – and challenged his players to take a look at themselves.
Pogba said: “To be honest, we have been having these kinds of games for a long time.
“We have not found the problem, conceding easy goals, stupid goals.
“We need to be more mature, play with more experience and arrogance in a good way. We need to find something, we need to change.”
Solskjaer said: “We need to look at the whole set-up of the team, the whole balance – maybe something has to give for it.
“It shouldn’t be a wake-up call because we’ve had them before.
“The players have got to look at themselves in the mirror. I’ve looked at myself in the mirror.”
STATISTICS don’t undermine Premier League title challenges – performances do.
But there was one outstanding fact following the final whistle at a joyous King Power Stadium that just cannot be ignored.
It’s now one clean sheet in the last 19 outings for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer & Co – just a single shut-out in what amounts to half a season of matches.
It’s a devastating truth that is blowing a major hole below the waterline of the good ship Manchester United.
Unless that improves – and both soon and drastically – then the Old Trafford giants will sink further into the deep.
And the Norwegian (left) is likely to end up going down with his vessel.
For now, at least, he is still at the wheel – as the skewed Stone Roses chant goes about the club’s boss – but it fell off in the east Midlands, all right.
From back to front, it was almost as if United didn’t need to do the ugly side of the game anymore.
What’s worse is that no one looked bothered, either.
It didn’t help the manager’s cause that this car-crash was kick-started by the most expensive defender ever recruited by the club.
Harry Maguire’s determination to return from a calf injury sustained last month is commendable.less praiseworthy was his sloppiness which allowed Brendan Rodgers’ warriors to first grab a foothold in the game and then take it by the scruff of the neck.
Ahead thanks to Mason Greenwood’s thunderbolt, Maguire (far right) dithered in possession and was caught out by Kelechi Iheanacho who set the ball back for Youri Tielemans to deliver one of the goals of the season.
If the centre-half could count himself unlucky to be on the end of such a great finish, then there were no such excuses for his team-mates.
Every single one of Leicester’s goals could be traced back to simple mistakes.
And there isn’t sufficient room on this page to list the rest of the chances the Foxes created. They had a
field day.
Credit has to be given to Rodgers (left) for setting up his team to attack.
He didn’t worry about the glut of attacking options that his opposite number has to call upon. He sensed a weakness and set about going for the throat.
And he also had the benefit of the game’s most dependable stopper – veteran Jonny Evans (right) who has been sorely
missed at the heart of