Jose Mourinho has censured Paul Pogba in the wake of Manchester United’s debilitating draw at Southampton, accusing the France international of showing a lack of respect for his team-mates and the club’s supporters with the nature of his performance in Saturday’s Premier League fixture.
In a post-match dressing down delivered in front of the entire United team, Mourinho is understood to have called Pogba “a virus”. According to a dressing-room source, Pogba was admonished with the words: “You don’t play. You don’t respect players and supporters. And you kill the mentality of the good honest people around you.”
Restored to an injury-stricken, United starting XI after being benched for the midweek Champions League defeat of Young Boys, Pogba produced an insipid performance replete with bad decision making and errors on and off the ball. Statistically, the Frenchman was dispossessed eight times by opponents, lost 15 of 30 duels and completed less than 85 per cent of his passes, a poor return for such a technically gifted midfielder.
Badly in need of points to close the gap to the Champions League qualifying places, United conceded twice in the opening 20 minutes, and although able to level the scoreline before halftime left England’s south coast with a fourth Premier League draw of the campaign. Asked in a post-match interview to explain his team’s failure to win, Mourinho avoided mentioning Pogba by name, but identified the midfield as a particular problem area.
“The second goal was a direct free-kick and the first goal was because we don’t press enough the ball when our block is low, which is something that we do wrong,” Mourinho said “Doesn’t matter the system we play, has to do with the characteristics of the players. We don’t have many – with all the respect, hope people understand what I mean – we don’t have many ‘mad dogs’. The ones that bite the ball all the time and press all the time, we don’t have many people with that spirit so nothing to do with the system.
“I thought Scott (McTominay) and (Nemanja) Matic, they did a very positive job for two midfield players (playing in defence), and Phil Jones leads that group of three in a way that we were totally in control. I would say the only problem that we had was that the two attacking players didn’t have enough continuity because in midfield we lost too many balls.
“We lost so many balls in midfield, we lost so many balls in our transition to the last third, it was difficult to have that continuity. I think it is the only reason. What we did so well in the last 15, 20 minutes of the first half, which was to connect with the attacking players by transporting the ball, leaving the ball in the right moment, the right choice of pass, playing simple, accelerate the game. In the second half we went back again to that dynamic where we lose too many balls midfield. And when the players don’t understand that simplicity is genius, especially in some parts of the pitch, and they keep and keep and keep in going to complicated football it’s difficult to have that continuity.
“But good spirit, good fight, good comeback from 0-2 to 2-2. Great examples of players fighting until the limits where probably I would say as positive examples, Marcus Rashford, Phil Jones, of course many others showing that respect for our shirt, that respect for the club. I think it was not the result that we want, but a performance that, apart of that interruptions we had in our attacking waves from midfield – apart of that – I think had positive sense.”
The Old Trafford manager’s travails with the most expensive signing of his career are long standing and deep. Last season, Pogba and his agent Mino Raiola demanded that Mourinho restructure his tactics to reduce the Frenchman’s defensive duties and allow him to play in his preferred on the left-hand side of a midfield three. Dissatisfied with the outcome, Raiola offered the player services to a number of United’s domestic and European rivals, including Manchester City.
In an attempt to refocus Pogba on United’s cause for the current campaign, Mourinho started it by handing the 25-year-old the captaincy, placing him on penalty kicks, and doling out public praise. “The truth is we are together for two years and a couple of weeks, and I’ve never been so happy with him as I am now,” said Mourinho in August. “He’s working well, playing well. He does for the fans, he does for the team, and that’s what I want.”
Pogba responded with a series of post-game interviews in which he highlighted his continued discontent with the coach and publicly questioned his tactics, arguing that the team “should attack, attack, attack”. Mourinho reprimanded the midfielder, telling him, in front of team-mates, that he would never captain the club again.
The gross inconsistency of United’s best-paid professional has been the subject of critique from prominent former players. Analysing the Southampton match for Premier League TV yesterday, Phil Neville said: “I think (Mourinho) gets a lot of criticism for hanging his players out in public, but you watch Pogba today, I’m sorry, if he’d done an interview after the game and said, ‘Oh, Paul Pogba was fantastic’, that’s a lie. He wasn’t fantastic. He was sloppy, he caused United problems. Deal with it. In society nowadays we mollycoddle our players. He didn’t play well, face up to it, deal with it. Just like Luke Shaw has.” (Daily Record)
