Paul Scholes says Paul Pogba must raise his game at Manchester United, claiming the midfielder needs to “use his brain” to ensure he becomes one of the game’s top players. Pogba made a sensational return to Old Trafford in 2016, arriving after a successful four-year stint at Juventus for a then-record fee of €105 million (£89m).
The midfielder faced widespread criticism for his early form in the Premier League, however, as he struggled to adapt to life back in the English top flight.
The 25-year-old has steadily found his feet since and was an important figure for Jose Mourinho’s United side throughout the 2018-19 campaign, making 25 league appearances despite missing part of the season with a thigh injury. Pogba ended the domestic season strongly before helping the France national team claim their second ever World Cup trophy, scoring in Les Bleus’ 4-2 victory over Croatia in the final. Despite his success in Russia, however, Scholes has questioned the midfielder’s consistency at club level and believes that a settled starting XI at Old Trafford may be the key to helping the Frenchman achieve that.
“Paul needs to find a consistency, I think,” Scholes said. “You look at his game, he can be brilliant one week and not so good the next week. He seems to be a player which you get a performance out of every three to four games. If you’re going to win leagues, that’s not enough, it’s just not enough.”
“He needs to become that commanding player he was at Juventus – he was part of a set structure at Juventus, he knew every week which position he was going to play, who he was going to play with, and I don’t think that has helped him at United. I’d be amazed if the same team has been named twice in a row, or the same formation. There doesn’t seem to be a set way of where it’s going and that could possibly work against him.
Scholes’ criticism of Pogba isn’t the first time he has questioned him publicly, having previously told the club to sell the midfielder if there was any doubt in his loyalty. The two were also shunted into the spotlight when Scholes questioned Pogba’s attitude following United’s 1-0 defeat to West Brom in April.
And while the player-turned-pundit has no doubt about the quality of Pogba, he believes that he still has some way to go before being compared with the best in the game.But despite Pogba’s success in the 2018 world cup in Russia, his Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho was far from effusive in his praise for the midfielder. The 25-year-old is set to miss the start of the season as he recovers from the World Cup.
José Mourinho believes Paul Pogba should treat each match for Manchester United with the same intensity as those he played for France at Russia 2018, with the manager suggesting the midfielder can lose focus for his club.Yet Pogba has struggled to for consistency in United colours and Mourinho indicated how he might achieve this in the coming season. “I don’t think it’s about us getting the best out of him,” the Portuguese tsaid . “It’s about him giving the best he has to give. I think the World Cup is the perfect habitat for a player like him to give the best. Why? Because it’s closed for a month, where he can only think about football. Where he’s with his team on the training camp, completely isolated from the external world, where they focus just on football, where the dimensions of the game can only motivate.
“During a season, you can have a big match then a smaller match, then one even smaller, then you can lose your focus, you can lose your concentration, then comes a big match again.”
Mourinho stated that the deeper a player goes into the World Cup the easier it is for them to elevate their displays. “In the World Cup, the direction of the emotion, of the responsibility, of the big decisions is always growing up [further]. You are in the group phase, you go to the last 16, to the quarter-finals, to the semi-finals, to the finals. This feeds the motivation. This feeds the concentration of a player.
“So I think it was the perfect environment for him. At the same time, players in the World Cup, they really feel that extra commitment with a country, with the people, that extra responsibility that makes them – by the emotional point of view – to be sometimes even overcommitted. They play for the team, and only for the team, and the team is the most important thing, and they do everything to try to succeed. So I think it’s the perfect environment for a talented player like him to focus, to fully focus on the job.”