Manchester Utd Thread

These things happen  

Rashford is clearly the better penalty taker. Pogba is atrocious at taking them, even though last nights wasn't nearly his worst. It is the kind of thing that people thought Solksjaer was being brought in to remove, that kind of individual toxic ego that goes against team ethos. 

As Terri said, it could well be a case of Solskjaer being stuck with the imposter, possibly hoping to sell and replace him with someone else, but the board probably said no. Whatever the scenario in the background, none of them end well for Solskjaer himself.

Cantona definitely missed at least one and it was away to Leeds as far as I remember. 

 

 

Aside from his clearly below average conversion rate for United (he also had a 50% success rate for Juve - admittedly only took two for them) he doesn't have any distinct penalty style - between last year's farcical run-ups and the one he took the other night he basically seems to make it up as he goes along. Even the penalties he scores rarely look convincing - unlike Rashford who never looks remotely like missing. It seems pretty clear he's only still on penalties because Solskjaer is pandering to him in any way he can in order to keep him happy enough to stay on for another season.

Will be interesting to see the reaction

 

I've seen the Messi thing repeatedly mentioned the past 2 days. Messi is not a great penalty taker. Not woeful, but not great either. One thing is certain though, he is one of the greatest players of all time. So even if he if not statistically the best penalty taker at the club, I can see why managers would want to keep one of the greatest players ever happy.

Pogba is not Messi. Pogba is a guy that when he leaves United all the fans will wonder what the fuss was really about. He's been at the club 3 years and you can count his top level performances with the fingers of one hand. Best of luck keeping tabs on the amount of awful displays he has put in at United.

OntheOneRoad is mentioning him being a positive influence, how nobody comes out of the United dressing room and says anything bad about Pogba. That United dressing room! The one that is rightly pointed out as the most toxic at the club in the past 30 years. I wouldn't be putting too much stock in who is being backed by the majority of the players there.

As for the talk of racism  the deflecting done around Pogba is a sight to see. He is a hugely over rated me feiner, who goes through the motions in the majority of games he plays for United. There's a reason so many of the match going fans turned on him last season, it's because they can see how little he gives a f*ck when on the pitch.

If it's true that Rashford is now on penalties for the season, that will not sit well at all with the team player Pogba  He knows well his awful stats needs those penalties for padding. It got him the most comical of places on the PFA team of the year last season. 

Brendan won't be able to point to his goal stats (mostly penalties last season) to gloss over some godawful displays in general by Pogba this season. It's going to be a long season for Pogba. Oh, and his number 1 fan Brendan 

You could argue that. I'd counter that by saying that the majority of that dressing room was proven to stick together, graft and win trophy after trophy over the next 4-5 years. Obviously with 1-2 additions after Keane was thrown out.

The whole reason Solskjaer was keen to bring guys like Maguire and AWB in was to start to turn around what is clearly a poisonous, me feiner, attitude at the club. I don't think Solskjaer is stupid either, I think he would gladly have been rid of Pogba if he could. Just like lads like Lukaku and Sanchez are being moved on.