Terrace Talk: Pogba sick leave brings summer soap opera forward

When it came to memorable sights, United fans were spoiled for choice on Saturday at Huddersfield. 

How about Lukaku’s thrusting, and cleanly-struck double, showing what can be done when you give him the kind of lummox-leading through-balls he craves? Or the ballsy eight-year-old kid mounting a pitch invasion - and being rescued by a United player? Or the comical sight of VAR in operation, which is promising to be the most disastrous additions to football since Phil Neville took up punditry.

One then wonders what the supposedly “ill” Paul Pogba must’ve made of it all, as he sat at home nursing his in-no-way-imaginary malady. Pleased for the boys as they fought their way through to the quarters, or quietly worried that they did well enough without him?

It’s already become a media cliché that Pogba has “suffered” from the arrival of Sánchez, although this rather bizarrely ignores the fact that the Frenchman has been underwhelming during previous chunks of the season. There’s no doubt that some unbalancing has occurred since Alexis donned the shirt, but that’s only to be expected; in any event, you’d think someone of Pogba’s stature would be able to deal with it.

The José/Pogba soap opera filled columns, with published versions of their interactions ranging from helpful heart-to-heart chats to all-out dressing-room bust-ups. One thing is clear, though: Jose Mourinho does not - and probably never did - want Pogba to play in a ‘defensive’ two with Matic in the long term. He was keen to stress to hacks the other day that he intends to sign someone in the summer to play a Michael Carrick role at the back of the midfield which, presumably, would release Pogba to play in the advanced liberated role he prefers. Thus all, in theory, should be well - eventually.

Mourinho also asserted to hacks that he’d been voluble about this a couple of months ago, and it’s certainly true that agents connected to United were reporting to sources back in early December that José was already on the hunt for a ‘Carrickian’. In other words, there’s no kneejerking going on here. It’s something that was always on the agenda to get fixed.

This hasn’t stopped some papers suggesting Real Madrid might sniff an opportunity here to step in and take Pogba. They were, after all, keen suitors two years ago. Their mouthpieces have denied the latest stories, but I am told that Real did list Pogba as one of the three United players whose situations they wished to be kept abreast of, during an early December phonecall with Ed Woodward. (The other two were De Gea and Martial.) During that call, Real also gave the impression that Modric, Kroos and Bale are all likely to be available come summer. Not that United are necessarily interested in any of them, one hastens to add. (And in Bale’s case, one would hope someone will tell him and his awful ‘people’ that he’s long since had his United chance, matey: more than once, in fact.)

But we get ahead of ourselves. It’s only February.

Spring is but a lamb’s gambol away, and we are all off to sunny Seville for an eagerly-awaited novel jolly. That’s followed by a genuinely lipsmacking Premier League fixture against Chelsea, which should be accompanied by a hefty dose of smug murmurings about ‘how times change’.

Yes, those Stamford Bridge days when Conte was being feted as a mastermind, and contrasted with the ‘failure’ of predecessor Mourinho now suddenly seem so long ago, don’t they? That poisonous club, with its dressing room of self-serving grotbags and its hideous owner, looks like it is setting up to get rid of yet another boss just months after a title success.

Not that José will be offering the Italian any tea and ‘I feel your pain’ sympathy, of course. And rightly so; Conte’s mouthed off too much to deserve an arm around the shoulder. An afternoon of pitchside needle and grudgery awaits, one hopes. Anything to take our minds off the essential futility of these 2018 Premiership exercises, one might suggest...