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It seemed like the kind of team selection that gets a response from a manager or moves him toward capture.
On this occasion, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came out on the right side of it and now he has been left with the greatest doubt of his time at Manchester United. Are you brave enough to build a team without Paul Pogba on it?
This was a much better performance from Solskjaer’s United. Yes, the opposition was tame, but they still had to win once they got a goal start. United did it comfortably and with a bit of flair in the final moments.
Pogba, however, did not start the game and was not critical to any of that, while the guy playing in his preferred position was front and center once again.
In short, Pogba would like to play where Bruno Fernandes plays. He wants to be the player who links his back to the front, who makes key passes in the last third, who gets ahead of the play to score the odd goal.
The Frenchman is good at it but his problem is that Fernandes is better now.
Two in one doesn’t always go, no matter who you are. When United signed Juan Sebastian Veron from Lazio for around £ 30 million two decades ago, the Premier League expected his impact. He was a player in his best moment, the Argentine.
It looked like the signing of the summer by Sir Alex Ferguson, eager to turn his team’s 1999 Champions League triumph into a period of European dominance.
But Veron failed at United and it wasn’t because he was a bad player or because he didn’t try hard enough or didn’t care enough. No. It failed because United already had a player named Roy Keane who did all the things Veron liked to do.
United didn’t need two of those players and, challenged by a newcomer, Keane was never going to lose that battle.
I remember traveling to Switzerland to see Veron play for his country at that time. It was imperative. Everything that Argentina did went through him.
He must have touched the ball dozens of times. Back at United, he seemed lost, almost a passenger. In the end, it was sold.
So let’s go back to Pogba. The only way the 27-year-old wins over Solskjaer’s team is by adapting.
He has the intelligence, vision and physical attributes to be a good grip player and the path to that role is blocked only by Scott McTominay, Fred and Nemanja Matic. Hardly modern game titans.
But it is said that Pogba does not want that role. He wants the other one. So we will see what Solskjaer does now.
Certainly this was a brave approach from the Norwegian at Newcastle. Clearly still irritated by his team’s 6-1 surrender at home to Tottenham two weeks ago, he made five changes to his squad. It seemed like a gamble.
Parachuting Fred and McTominay into the lineup seemed like a step backward, as did handing Juan Mata a starting jersey.
United often look rather pedestrian when that trio play and here they were already hampered by the injury absence and suspension of fast-paced Mason Greenwood and Anthony Martial respectively.
However, United played well. They defended strongly when they had to (Harry Maguire was excellent) and then passed the ball well enough in the final third to open up a Newcastle defense that didn’t have the courage, or perhaps the instruction, to put pressure on them.
Marcus Rashford seemed to revel in the responsibility that came with the absence of his two attacking partners, while Mata’s use of the ball was exemplary. If the 32-year-old Spaniard had been a quicker yard, what a Premier League player he would have been.
However, the fundamental thing for the night was Fernandes. Forced to deny reports from Portugal last week that he already has doubts about Solskjaer, he played here as if he had something to prove.
Fernandes brought energetic rhythm to this United performance. He missed a penalty, but his persistent quality ensured that his team earned the victory they deserved at the end of the game.
Pogba was given 20 minutes off the bench as United chased and won the game, but he’s unlikely to hold out for long.
It seems that Solskjaer’s mettle as a coach is about to be properly tested.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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