WHY SAY ANYTHING?

When Manchester United signed Alexis Sánchez it was reported that the first thing on the mind of Paul Pogba was to ensure he received a pay rise so as not to be paid less than the Chilean.

We here at WSA find this difficult to believe as his contract had previously been negotiated and signed and he was obviously quite happy with the result.

If Sánchez is now being paid more than Pogba that is not his fault. If his agent negotiated a better deal than that of Pogba then good for him.

Manchester United are certainly not in a position whereby they have to give the Frenchman more money. If anything, and judging by his recent form, they should add a couple of performance-related bonuses and take away some of the basic!

If the reports are true and if any of this is making Pogba unhappy then he is in the wrong profession. It happens at every big club in the world and he just has to get used to it and stop behaving like a prima donna.

If, however, he is unhappy about his position in the team then he has a valid point. He likes to play in a three man midfield which affords him a lot more freedom and requires less discipline as he has two other midfielders shielding him.

He is currently employed in a two man midfield, usually with Nemanja Matić, whereby he has to take up a holding position occasionally and has to track back more often than he would like.

This, we agree, is not his best position but it is something he needs to take up with the manager, not the press.

José Mourinho is playing Pogba in the position he thinks will benefit the team most at present. He could very well be wrong but his managerial record is proof that he isn’t wrong very often.

He does have a somewhat unfortunate penchant for playing players out of position and this tends to paper over the cracks of genuine problem areas.

As everybody knows neither Antonio Valencia nor Ashley Young are any good whatsoever at the defensive side of the game. Yet Mourinho has continued playing with his “converted” wingers at full back even though they are at an age when, with Manchester City for example, they would be shown the door.

So as long as Pogba is doing as his manager asks then he will not have a problem and should not be complaining publically.

If there is a way Mourinho can get Pogba into the team in a three man midfield then he will do so. It will depend very much on the competititon and the opposition at the time.

There are now reports floating around that Pogba wants to go to Real Madrid, reports that he wishes he had gone to Real Madrid instead of United. Again, we find this difficult to believe and see a pretty strong comparison between the two teams at present with Madrid also well out of the title race in Spain.

So what would be different if he had gone to Madrid?

Would he now be playing in a three man midfield with Tony Kroos and Luka Modrić? It is open to debate as Zidane prefers to play Isco with these two even over Gareth Bale!

Again, if the reports are true, then Pogba needs to be careful what he wishes for as he could end up in exactly the same situation and be no better off whatsoever.

At the end of the day the manager picks the team, the formation and the tactics to be used for each game. Sometimes those selections will benefit Pogba and see him in his favourite position and other times they won’t. He has to be a team player and just get on with it. He can’t expect every selection to be built round himself.

So he has a right to be unhappy when not playing in his preferred role but he has no right at all to complain about it to his agent, to the other players or, indeed, to anyone other than his manager.

It’s a little like winning the lottery then complaining about the way the winning ticket is selected!