Manchester United fans have witnessed two different Paul Pogba's this season.
There's the one we saw at Old Trafford on Sunday, who is clearly trying so hard to be the best player on the pitch that he loses all focus and concentration on the actual task at hand, and the one that the fans had seen over the past 12 weeks or so, a player with so much skill and natural physicality that he is unplayable on his day.
His early performances were underwhelming, and birthed a flood of memes mocking his big money return to Old Trafford. The team were not set up to get the best out of him, and he was clearly trying far too hard to justify his price tag, to live up to the hype that he himself had helped generate with his constant marketing presence, but then things started to click.
The inclusion of Michael Carrick against Swansea saw an instant and very noticeable improvement in Paul Pogba. The freedom he had to operate higher up the pitch knowing that Carrick was looking after things further back allowed him to be in a position to smack that rasping volley into the top corner, and with his confidence up he went from strength to strength in the coming weeks.
Nominated for December's Premier League player of the month award, only losing out to Zlatan Ibrahimovic for who he provided a number of the goals that saw him seal the award, Pogba looked to have turned a corner.
GRAPHIC: Paul Pogba - December’s Player of the Month #mufc pic.twitter.com/rPlM0RoWQe
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) January 4, 2017
The balance in a midfield three containing Carrick, Ander Herrera, and Pogba was the driving factor behind Man United's winning streak, as Pogba went about his job and looked as though he was playing with no pressure. Without a care in the world.
Then came the Liverpool game.
That was Pogba's worst performance for Manchester United, and it was so bad that it would be surprising if in five years time it is not still regarded as his worst for the club.
After an early mistake, a missed chance when put through by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, he tried desperately to make amends and his eagerness to have an impact resulted in an abandonment of the basics that he does so well, and has been doing so well. His man-marking was exposed of being that of a centre-forward, so the decision to put him on Dejan Lovren is utterly baffling, but it was after losing his man that we saw an act of desperation that was not needed.
It is highly unlikely that Lovren was going to score if Pogba didn't connect with that ball, but as the Frenchman had no idea where he or the ball was, he guessed, mistimed his jump, and looked as if he wanted the ground to swallow him up having given Liverpool exactly what they wanted. A lead.
The rest of the first half was a nightmare. Half time couldn't come quick enough for Jose to get his arm around him, but when we saw Wayne Rooney getting ready to warm up, many had presumed that Mourinho had given Pogba the hook. Instead it was Carrick who was going off, and that in itself didn't help Pogba.
During his difficult start, his underwhelming performances came without Carrick, as part of a holding midfield two. Mourinho put him there knowing that the game plan was to pass him by in the second half. And it did, he was invisible.
But this isn't the first time Pogba has been accused of going missing. For weeks Manchester United vs Liverpool was built up as a massive fixture, and rightly so, but you could tell that Paul Pogba wasn't treating this like any other game. He had the special haircut, he had launched his own personal emojis, and there were #POGBA banners clearly visible for most of the match on the advertising boards. All of that looks ridiculously ill-advised in hindsight.
"The hashtags & emojis. If you're gonna do that stuff, you better play well. He didn't today" @IanWright0 on Pogba
Is that fair #MUFC fans? pic.twitter.com/wI4w84vsSG— BBC 606 (@bbc606) January 15, 2017
They are all distractions, and what is being said about Pogba by pundits and the media today is what was said about him after Euro 2016.
France had a fantastic Euro 2016 campaign, but Paul Pogba didn't. Again, it was as if he thought he had to be the man to drive his nation to glory, to make it all about him, and the pressure he put on himself to perform appeared to be too much. He was called a fraud, but at the end of the year he found himself nominated for the Ballon D'Or.. How does that work?
Because there are two Paul Pogbas.
What is holding Pogba back is this expectation that the stage is set for him to shine. We saw it against Liverpool, trying too much under the ferocious pressure of a Jurgen Klopp team, letting his mistakes get to him, and ultimately shrinking into a shadow of the player he has been in previous weeks.
There appears to be an issue with treating big matches like they are 'any other game'. It's the games like West Ham, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland where we see all of his qualities shine.
That is something you would think would come with maturity. He's 23, and has a lot of growing to do as a footballer, but he also has a perfect example of how to do it sharing a dressing room with him in Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The big Swede, while he always got goals and won trophies, faced many of the same criticisms Pogba is now facing. Ibrahimovic was not as widely respected as he is now, as during his time with Barcelona, Inter Milan, and AC Milan he would often go missing in big Champions League games, and I can think of a tie for Inter at Old Trafford where Man Utd fans left the ground laughing about how poor this supposed World Class striker had been.
He managed to find a way to stay cool, to treat each and every fixture the same and not allow the build up and pressure to impact him later in his career, and as a result it is his time at PSG and Man Utd that he will look back on as his peak.
If Paul Pogba wants to be the caliber of player that it is blatantly obvious he has the talent to be, then he needs to stop making these grand occasions about him, and not let emotion hinder his performance.
Paul Pogba's Instagram post following yesterday's 1-1 draw with Liverpool #MUFC #Pogba pic.twitter.com/MMikYoUgdX
— Man Utd Scoop (@ManUtdScoop) January 16, 2017
His response after the Liverpool game, posted to his Instagram account, claims that 'shit happens', and it's true that a lot it being made about his first really poor performance in some time, but there's a clear trend in his dips in performance, and it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that he struggles in games when he has invited pressure on himself.
If he can find away to rid this expectation before a match against Liverpool in the same way that he does against Hull or Swansea, then there will be few that can keep up with him, and while that clearly isn't the case at the moment, he's got time on his side.
