Two games. Two sodding games. That’s how far we managed to get into the 2018/19 season before the Manchester United circus came spluttering back to the forefront once again.
Driving the narrative this time is the supposed feud between Paul Pogba and Jose Mourinho, which has now been embellished with supporting cameos from Paul Scholes and Mino Raiola.
Scholes once again levelled criticism at Pogba in the aftermath of Sunday’s embarrassing 3-2 defeat against Brighton, calling the United captain an “absent leader” and “inconsistent” while sitting in as a pundit for Optus Sport.
Ever the faithful steward, this prompted Raiola to leap to his client’s defence by biting back with a couple of pugnacious Twitter barbs aimed at Scholes…
Some people need to talk for fear of being forgotten. Paul Scholes wouldn’t recognize a leader if he was in front of Sir Winston Churchill. @paulpogba
— Mino Raiola (@MinoRaiola) 21 August 2018
Paul Scholes should become sports director and advise Woodward to sell Pogba. Would be sleepless nights to find Pogba a new club @paulpogba
— Mino Raiola (@MinoRaiola) 21 August 2018
Of course, Scholes is a member of the English Football Hall of Fame and played under one of post-war football’s greatest leaders of men, so all points made in the first tweet are largely moot. It’s the second tweet that exposes Raiola’s endless, greedy contrivance.
It’s the same old patter: The super agent threatening to uproot his most lucrative commodity (Pogba) and deliver him unto to a club that will appreciate his mercurial talents (Barcelona, etc).
For all his omnipresence, Raiola actually doesn’t tweet or speak to the press all that often – only when doing so suits his or his clients’ ends.
Raiola may be serious about moving Pogba on; he may be ‘subtly’ letting United know that Mourinho/the constant criticism from ex-players is a problem if they wish to keep Pogba on the books for the long-term. To think he’s actually upset about Scholes’ comments is naive. These things are rarely done on an irked whim.
If Pogba really has had enough of Mourinho and wants to leave, so be it. Sell him on for an exorbitant fee, let Raiola sop up his similarly enormous commission and let somebody else deal with the nonsense.
United would be losing a world class talent with a genuine deep-seated affiliation for the club, but central midfielders are perfectly replaceable and it’s not like Pogba has been firing at full chat.
Of course, they could always sack Mourinho instead, which probably wouldn’t be overly disastrous either.
It’s a real shame that the player so gifted is so deeply entrenched with such a disruptive puppet-master, but that’s the way it is at the top of the shop. The individual will always come first when there’s a six-figure cut to be creamed off.