Nowadays, Paul Pogba is constantly in the headlines. The Manchester United midfielder remains a puzzling figure at Old Trafford. He was recently riled up by his agent, Mino Raiola who publicly said that Pogba was ‘unhappy’ in this setup. Pogba shook it all off in a social media post within a week mentioning he is ‘1000%’ committed. Even after all of this, he is a world-class midfielder on his day and has played a key role with France winning the World Cup in 2018, along with Juventus’ successes in Serie A.
At United though, he couldn’t find his best form in his last 4 years with the club but still remained among the top ranks. Recently after his comments he has been playing a bit better from the December fixtures and showing his World Class presence. Now keeping aside everything and remembering the fact that what should be a conduct of a player or their agent to their parent club and we just cannot ignore Sir Alex Ferguson. There were many things that made Sir Alex Ferguson the best manager he was and one of them was the ability to cultivate a siege mentality among his squad.
The timing of Mino Raiola’s comments had no doubt riled up Pogba and it somehow cost the entire United squad the tie against Leipzig. It was a major distraction, unsettling for the team, it risked interfering with dressing room harmony and put Solskjaer in a difficult situation in regards to whether to play Paul Pogba or not in the long run.
Even if the situation has cooled down from both the sides now, if a condition like this were to happen in the future, the Norwegian can use his experience of working under the legendary Scotsman to turn the situation to his advantage.
What Would Fergie Do? – Well as per previous experience, he would bench Pogba at the earliest before only making him play U23 matches, until the time that he can be sold for the best offer possible. This was the same treatment meted out to Dwight Yorke who came to training 45 minutes late and had an argument regarding it with the gaffer. For the remainder of the season, he started for 6 games and was sold to Blackburn for 3.5m.
P.S- This is more of a speculation as there is no similarity between the acts of Pogba and Yorke, as Pogba’s agent was involved in the scuffle only.
