Everybody who covers football, or even cares about it, has expressed their opinion on what they think is wrong with Paul Pogba this season. Last season’s struggles were sometimes blamed on the adjustment period he had to endure when he came back to Manchester United from Juventus.
This season, the midfielder’s dip in form has most often been blamed on manager Jose Mourinho playing him out of position. Others say Pogba is much more interested in commercialism (emojis, dancing, wild hair cuts) and individual branding that football. You also have people who blame the drop off on his being unsettled at the club/having a rift for Mourinho.
Still others blame the Frenchman’s disappointing production on the injury he suffered in September during a UEFA Champions League group play victory over Basel.
At his news conference today, Mourinho dismissed the notion that Pogba’s injury, which forced him to miss 12 games, was the reason for his underachievement. However, he admits that he doesn’t have the answer either.
“Ask him,” Mourinho responded. “Ask him when you get a chance when he thinks about it. It’s nothing to do with his injury. His recovery was good. I think he is very fine after the injury.”
“It was a difficult injury, it was an injury that other players, other clubs, other medical assessments — they end in surgery, his option with the medical opinions was not to go to the surgery table and his recovery was really really good and I think he is more than fine in relation to his recovery from the injury which is an area sometimes where you have a recurrence. In his case, not at all.”
It’s extremely important to mention though that the standards for Paul Pogba are so ridiculously high. It comes with the territory of his record setting price tag.
It’s not like he’s that bad either. Sure, he hardly ever scores, but he’s still third in the league in assists, despite missing all that time. Pogba hasn’t been awful, he just hasn’t lived up to the hype.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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