Saturday started out great for Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, then turned awful, and then it became a total disaster. Today has seen the best of times, then the worst of times, and now about as awful as times can be.
Pogba had a masterful performance today in United ‘s 3-2 win at Arsenal, a huge important victory that serves as the first away win over a top six side for Jose Mourinho since 2014. Pogba provided the beautiful assist that set up Jesse Lingard’s goal, a scoring strike that put the game away.
However, no one is talking about that right now. Instead they’re talking about this terrible challenge, with the spikes out and guided at the knee of the opponent, which got him a straight red card, and likely three match ban. That means he’ll be out for the most important match of the season, the Manchester Derby a week from tomorrow.
The troubles certainly do not end there though!
https://twitter.com/GoonerJon7/status/937035185979383810
A Paul Pogba interview is going viral right now, and it’s for all the wrong reasons. Pogba overtly wished injuries to key players on Man City, just so United can keep up.
“I hope – and it’s bad to say things like this – but I hope they will get some very important players injured like what happened with us,” Pogba said on Football Focus. People don’t see this, don’t speak about this, but every time we have important players that get injured when there is important games.”
“So if that starts happening with them as well maybe we’ll get a little difference. A little touch that makes them weaker.”
WOW! There’s a whole lot to unpack there, let’s start with the fact that he’s objectively wrong. Manager Jose Mourinho is not shy about reminding the media when he’s missing key players for big games. Much more importantly, is the lack of class and professionalism shown by Pogba here.
It’s a repugnant thing to say and it sets a horrible example to all the children all around the world who look up to him. Heated rivalries are one thing, but this is just being a bad human.
Finally, these comments convey a major sense of defeat and submission. Paul Pogba is admitting that United are so far below City that they need their rivals to significantly weaken in order to catch up.
I imagine there will be a lot of walking back and apologizing in response to these comments from Pogba very soon.
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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