United should get rid of Pogba
PAUL POGBA us e d to divide people. On one side, there were those of us who believed his elegance, his athleticism and his football intelligence were the key to returning Manchester United to the summit of the English game; who believed that when United brought him back in 2016, his arrival would be the catalyst for the club’s revival.
I t hought he would become United’s new standard-bearer, their marquee talent. I thought he was good enough to become for United what Roy Keane had once been. A different player to Keane, obviously, but somebody who had the ability and the character to be a leader in the dressing room and on the pitch. Someone who would carry the team and drive it on. I misjudged that.
On the other side, there were those who always thought Pogba wa s mor e about style than substance, who thought that United were worse with him than they were without him and who had long grown tired of his attempts to engineer a move away from Old Trafford or, at t he l east, had despaired of his tolerance of the attempts of his agent, Mino Raiola, to lead him to the exit door.
But there isn’t a divide any more. Not really. Four years on from rejoining United, Pogba’s story at Old Trafford is an anti-climax. If you are searching for a player who has moved the club forward at all in the post-Ferguson era, the closest you are going to get is Bruno Fernandes. Not Pogba. Pogba has had a couple of great moments and some good ones, too. More often, though, he’s been average.
HIS role in the Manchester derby yesterday was fairly typical. He made a couple of good passes but the hope that he might run a game of this importance is a distant memory. He was not the worst player on the pitch but he did nothing to stand out. I hate saying it but he has become Mr Ordinary.
He is the most expensive player in English football but he has not played like that. He has not had the effect on United that Virgil van Dijk had on Liverpool or Kevin de Bruyne had on Manchester City.
Too often, he has been a disappointment. Too often, he has been blah. Too often he has been a big player with little influence.
And when the latest melodrama about whether he wants to leave the club blew up last week courtesy of Raiola saying Pogba would move in the January transfer window, there was some outrage about the timing of the interview but, most of all, there was resignation. Who cares any more if Pogba wants to leave? Just let him go. It is not as if he is germane to the team’s success. We all have to accept that now.
Statistics produced by the journalist Alex Lavery last week showed that with Pogba in the team, United had a win rate of 55 per cent. Without him, that win rate rose to 62.5 per cent. ‘United are actually worse in every statistic with Pogba in the side than they are without him,’ Lavery found.
‘Not only is there a 7.5 per cent discrepancy in win- rate, United also end up being statistically one goal better off at both ends every 3-4 games without him.’
The biggest indictment of Pogba in a way is that he has bored most of us into apathy. He still has the potential to be the best player in the team but it feels as if he has run out of chances to prove he ever will be. When he joined up with France recently, he said it was a relief to get away from United. All the hints about wanting to leave, all the provocation from Raiola; it has just become rather boring.
He has given United plenty of glimpses of the stunning player he can often be with France. And the idea that he has been a complete bust is false. He was the only non-Liverpool or Manchester City representative in the PFA Premier League Team of t he Year in 2018-19. He has won supporters’ player of the month awards at Old Trafford. He has always been capable of moments of breathtaking brilliance like the sidefooted goal from 20 yards against West Ham.
But it is not enough. Not for a player we hoped would become United’s talisman. The truth is that Pogba has become a symbol, not of the rejuvenation of Manchester United but of the malaise that still runs through the club. He has become a poster boy for underachievement. In that way, he fits the mood at United perfectly.
It is time for United to cut their losses. Time to accept that Pogba is not quite up to the Herculean task of dragging United back into the light. There is speculation that when the transfer window opens next month, he will get his wish to leave. The years will turn him into a footnote in United’s history, not a headline.