The entire sports media and social networking sites bumped in exhilaration when Manchester United re-signed Paul Pogba for a hefty €105 million from Juventus after letting him leave for free during Sir Alex Ferguson’s realm. During his tenure with the Serie A champions, Pogba became one of the world’s best midfielders of current time and achieved a number of prestigious honours for his club and country.
The 23-year old Frenchman was brought in to fix up United’s complications and help them challenge for silverware once again under new boss Jose Mourinho. Since then, the midfielder has been a trending topic in several outlets, but mostly for wrong reasons – his haircuts, dab celebrations and most importantly off-form have piled pressure on him after failing to live up to the initial expectations in Europe’s toughest football league.
What has happened to Europe’s hottest prospect? Apparently, Paul Pogba is suffering from an identity crisis in United’s midfield from both formation wise and tactical perspective. He has struggled to adjust in Mourinho’s 4-2-3-1 (or 4-5-1) after becoming an integral and influential resource of Juventus’ 3-5-2 (later 4-3-1-2) formation. Pogba seems to be confused so far with the role he has been assigned to – a regista, a trequartista or neither?
Pogba started his Juventus career as a deep-lying playmaker (alongside the maestro Andrea Pirlo) to orchestrate the game from the heart of midfield. This particular position is known as ‘regista’ in Italy and the Frenchman became a huge success under the then Juve manager Antonio Conte. Later he was shifted to attacking central midfield (also known as ‘trequartista’ in Serie A) role by new boss Massimiliano Allegri and the midfielder told the reporters he has “found himself comfortable behind the two strikers in Allegri’s 4-3-1-2 formation.
However, Jose Mourinho, a Premier League veteran, has failed to utilise his best resource properly so far for Red Devils. Although such lump sum transfer fee crates added compulsion on an individual, but a player should not be judged by a couple of months of football in a completely new set-up. Roberto Firmino, Mesut Ozil and many more took time to settle and flourish in Premier League football and now they are showing great consistency and regularity week in week out. This can be similar for Paul Pogba as well- once he finds his momentum and gets his confidence back, he can lead a decent side to conquer extraordinary achievements.
But Mourinho has been bewildered with Pogba so far. He has tried him out both as a deep-lying playmaker and attacking central midfielder but has not let him settle in a particular position. Moreover, he expressed his desire to use Pogba as a centre-back in an interview due to his great physical presence what might lead to jeopardise his career progress. Pogba desperately needs a run of games in a particular spot before being labelled as a success or a failure.
Nevertheless, Paul Pogba has impressed in an advanced role against Leicester City, Swansea City and Europa league opponent Fenerbahce at Old Trafford. The Red Devils have Michael Carrick, Morgan Schneiderlin, Marouane Fellaini and out of favour midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger who can be functional as deep-lying playmakers or defensive midfielders. Pogba’s best might be served as ‘trequartista’ providing a streamline between the striking force and deeper midfield. He showed glimpses of his class with a crucial away victory over Swansea City. What he needs is to keep the momentum up in order to achieve the expectations and lead United to reconquer their lost pride.
