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I don't think Pogba is the difference in them challenging... Higuain would be a huge upgrade over Morata (today)...

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In terms of Europe it's a huge factor.

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but I rarely see him dominate for 90 mins...

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How many people do that on a regular basis, though?

Like who, though? Name some names. We might have differing definitions of "dominate."

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How many people do that on a regular basis, though?

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How many players who see a ton of the ball actually play a full 90 minutes week in and week out as well?

I'd say Aguero does it fairly often, but he almost never plays a full 90.

And you think all of those current dudes are better than Pogba?

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Toure can when he feels like it

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Not sure if noted model of consistency Yaya Toure is going to help your argument if your problem is that Pogba doesn't "dominate" often enough.

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Not sure if noted model of consistency Yaya Toure is going to help your argument if your problem is that Pogba doesn't "dominate" often enough.

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Toure is a kind of good comparison. In the attack, Pogba is probably only as consistent as Yaya was a few years ago. Sometimes simply so dominant on a physical level that even the best world class deeper/box to box mids like Kroos or Strootman don't have in their games.


However, the one thing people often overlook about Pogba is that he's always 100x the defender in midfield than Yaya ever was. That he consistently does every single match.


The €120m appeal is that if starts putting up more consistent player of the year Yaya type performances attacking you are are getting that from one of the better defending box to box mids in the game.

Not really any mid you can name with that range of contribution.

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However, the one thing people often overlook about Pogba is that he's always 100x the defender in midfield than Yaya ever was. That he consistently does every single match.

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When he was at United, i was under the impression that he was a Defensive Midfielder and that was his future.. not until he started to emerge at Juve did I see him more B2B.. sometimes it seems he wants to be an AM, but I don't think thats where he fits best..

FWIW, I'd be fine with City paying £100+ mil for Pogba.

I think this is just the kind of signing United need to propel themselves back into the championship picture.

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When he was at United, i was under the impression that he was a Defensive Midfielder and that was his future.. not until he started to emerge at Juve did I see him more B2B.. sometimes it seems he wants to be an AM, but I don't think thats where he fits best..

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Yeah, he's an absolute beast defensively and that's why it's hard to say he's overrated since he's giving you goals and assists that sees him compared with lighter defending attacking mids while being a huge plus defensively.

One "problem" for Pogba's consistency is that the better he's gotten around the box, the more he's shifted positions the past two years. For France, he was asked to play more of a defensive role and you could see his and Deschamps frustration since he was used to a much more free role the past couple of seasons under Allegri for Juve.

He got a lot of criticism during the past Euros for not producing in the attack more consistently at the same time Deschamp publicly called him out for getting forward into the attack too often.




That said, I think Allegri did a much better job in simply playing him as a heat seeking missile with defensive cover behind even if he's not a #10 playmaker.

It's the same way Spalletti has played Nainggolan and Conte used Vidal. When Prince Boateng used to be good for a minute, Allegri used him exactly the same way.



I think attacking mid is likely Pogba's best position. To make it work well though takes putting a couple of specific types of players along with him:

1) deeper midfielders that can defend positionally but also move up to provide key playmaking at a #10 type level since Pogba/Nainggola/Vidal aren't "visionary" passers in the trequartista role (Pjanic/Strootman behind Nainggolan, Marchisio/Khedira behind Pogba, Pirlo/Marchiso behind Vidal, even Montolivo behind Boateng for Allegri previously).

2) at least one winger and/or very creative second striker that wanders playmaking areas (Tevez/Dybala for Juve or Perrotti/Totti for Roma).



This type ball hawking, heat seeking missile with good attacking skills but not visionary passing played as the forward most attacking mid isn't something I see as much in the top EPL clubs (though I haven't watched a lot recently).
The Ozil, Eriksen, Silva, Coutinho types have seemingly been preferred but that may be changing with Conte and Mourihno.





Edit: I should have mentioned above that the problem for Deschamp/France is that they simply didn't have the Pjanic/Marchisio type midfielder. Really Pogba, Matuidi and the good Newcastle midfielder whose name escapes me all seem a bit more suited for the same position and Pogba was moved back since he was most versatile of those.