Jose Mourinho arrived back at Stamford Bridge tonight, gave three fingers to Chelsea fans and two fingers to attacking. His United side played with four at the back with Ander Herrera and Phil Jones sitting very deep in front of them, with Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Ashley Young, and Marcus Rashford the nominal attackers.
An early red card for Herrera, however, changed Mourinho's plans: and he immediately subbed off Mkhitaryan for Marouane Fellaini. From there, Chelsea dominated, and scored through a long-range strike by N'Golo Kante. From there, Chelsea spurned myriad chances, with United creating a single chance: Marcus Rashford could only shoot directly at Courtois.
The performance of Pogba - or non-performance, as the operative phrase may be - was the issue that cut ice most of all.
Pogba ambled about for the game doing very, very little, bar a long-range shot that went well wide ten minutes from time. Such ineffectiveness had plenty asking: what exactly does Pogba do?
What is the point of Pogba?
— John Brewin (@JohnBrewin_) March 13, 2017
A brave manager, like Mourinho used to be, would have subbed off Pogba ages ago.
— John Brewin (@JohnBrewin_) March 13, 2017
Now I've not seen loads of Man Utd this season as they're fairly dull. But what exactly does Paul Pogba do? Apart from photo shoots? #MUFC
— Danny Jamieson (@DannyJamieson) March 13, 2017
Pogba was badly outshone by N'Golo Kanté in midfield, and could probably have got closer to him on him on the goal:
It was generally one-sided all night:
N'Golo Kante owning Paul Pogba and showing us why he should be £89m instead alongside with his world class goal today. #CFC pic.twitter.com/uayFXaenWW
— ConteTweets (@ConteTweets) March 13, 2017
I doubt Kante would have let Pogba shoot that easily
— aidan o'hara (@oharaa) March 13, 2017
Kante cost almost £60m less than Pogba. The end.
— Matt Law (@Matt_Law_DT) March 13, 2017
Said it before, there's a reason Fergie raffled #Pogba away for free ! #waster #joker #mufc
— Darren Clarke (@clarkie2015) March 13, 2017
Pogba struggling to catch Kante. Sums up the two players' season.
— Darren Lewis (@MirrorDarren) March 13, 2017
Kante somehow managing to do everything he usually does and produce a more convincing Pogba impersonation than Pogba on top.
— Tom Williams (@tomwfootball) March 13, 2017
Pogba has been outdone all night by Kante #mufc
— Stuart Mathieson (@StuMathieson7) March 13, 2017
Pogba has to close Kante down there. He really needs to be dropped.
— dan 🔰 (@United__Dan) March 13, 2017
Granted, that was not a United side set up to bring the best out of Pogba, but surely United fans, you expect more than that from the Most Expensive Footballer In History?
