As Jose Mourinho hauled off Paul Pogba during the 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur after being outclassed for an hour by Mousa Dembele, he must have been overcome with a mixture of envy and frustration.
Frustration that the player he devoted a world-record sum to bring back to Old Trafford hasn’t emerged as unrelenting complete midfield force he expected, and envy that a colossal star for one of Manchester United’s divisional rivals provided the perfect template for what he wants from Pogba in the sitting role alongside Nemanja Matic.
The irony of Dembele’s next performance, a midfield masterclass that provided the platform for Tottenham’s two-goal comeback against Juventus in Turin, won’t have been lost on Mourinho either. Here’s a club that have never quite replaced the power and dynamism Pogba offered them in midfield, being absolutely dominated by the kind of player he wants the Frenchman to become - or at the very least, the Frenchman to play like at this moment in time.
That’s not to suggest Mourinho would swap Pogba for Dembele; there’s always been a stubbornness to the Portuguese and he’ll want to prove his investment in the former Old Lady star is the right one. There’s also the question of the varying market values of both players, and the fact Pogba is six years Dembele’s junior.
But in terms of style and influence, it’s clear Dembele embodies what Mourinho expects from Pogba in a deeper midfield role. Dembele’s greatest asset is the control he gives Tottenham; whether using his power and close control to win the ball back or shield it before smartly distributing, Dembele completely dominates his pocket of the pitch and the midfield battle in most matches tends to be decisive. Tall and strong but blessed with delicate feet and unique fluidity for such a robust specimen as well, Pogba - on paper at least - has all the attributes to provide a likewise platform in United’s engine room.
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And there is another distinct resemblance between the two. Just like how many pundits believe the defensive midfield slot squanders Pogba’s intuitive flair and attacking prowess, Tottenham’s decision to alter the role Dembele enjoyed at Fulham initially raised eyebrows. It indeed seemed a waste, and even a bizarre theory in the first place, to deploy an attack-minded player who was used as a support striker at Craven Cottage as a playmaking shield in front of the defence - even if he had the natural power to do so.
At this point, a transition that Tottenham first started in 2012 under Andre Villas-Boas has been completely vindicated. When he’s fit enough to start, Dembele is one of the most prepotent midfielders in Europe. But it’s easy to forget just how long it took Dembele to truly acclimatise to deep midfield, let alone receive the acknowledgements his performances deserved.
As much of the six years since have been spent criticising Dembele for not offering enough going forward, particularly in terms of goals and assists, as praising him for the quality and control he provides in the deep-lying berth, and only recently has the Belgian been widely revered as one of the best around. Now aged 30 and suffering from longstanding injury problems that mean he’s never quite fully fit, Dembele’s era of recognition unfortunately won’t last long.
So perhaps the ultimate question is whether Mourinho believes that kind of long-term commitment to transitioning Pogba’s game, in the same way Tottenham did with Dembele, can be justified when you’ve already spent £90million on a player United owned once before. In contrast, Spurs spent just £15million on Dembele; if their attempt to rewire the Belgian didn’t work out, it would have been a failure paling in comparison. On top of that, considering the criticism Pogba already receives after any unspectacular performance, does he really want to put his star player through several more years of that? Is Pogba even mentally robust enough?
More pertinently for the United boss, can Mourinho really afford to wait as long for the 49-cap international to truly master arts that have taken Dembele the best part of six years? His contract, signed last month, expires in 2020 and although not everybody has been convinced by the France international since returning to Old Trafford, it seems almost implausible that Manchester United can win the Premier League title without their club-record signing in something close to peak form.
United would have to buy more top-class players just to compensate for the level of performance Pogba isn’t bringing to the side, and at that point he becomes more valuable to them in the transfer market than on the pitch. In short, if Pogba were to take as long as Dembele to be recognised as a likewise domineering force in deeper midfield and provide the same level of consistent performance, something at Old Trafford would surely give long before that point. Either Pogba is sold, Mourinho is sacked or United never function at the level required to win the English crown while both are at the club.
In any case, attempting to transform Pogba’s game so significantly now is a monumental waste of his peak years, and to a far greater extent than Dembele's who was only a promising attacking player at best. This is, after all, a former European Golden Boy we’re talking about, who has already played in a Champions League final, and remains one of the most effective in Europe when given license to roam in an advanced central midfield role that allows his dynamism, creative flair and netting prowess to thrive. Maybe Pogba will naturally suit deeper positions later in his career, when he’s not as mobile and develops a more experienced reading of the game, but why not play him further forward now while he’s still capable of making such an intrinsic impact on matches?
More crucially, for all the comparisons, no two players are precisely the same and there is a clear polarising difference between the pair. Dembele’s problem when deployed deeper was never his lack of positional discipline or defensive awareness - rather, the biggest accusation was that he became far too passive for a player of such obvious technical quality. Pogba, in contrast, just can’t abide sitting deep and waiting for the game to come to him; he wants to be the driving force that launches attacks by bursting forward. If anything, Pogba’s too proactive for a defensive midfielder.
More than style of play, that’s a matter of mindsets, which is why turning Pogba into a deeper-lying player could take even longer than Dembele’s transition. The Belgian was always willing, but the Frenchman clearly isn’t and before Pogba even gets to the point where he’s learning the finer details of Dembele’s trade, Mourinho will have to transform his mentality first. After subbing Pogba off in his last two Premier League appearances and amid rumours of United’s club-record signing being disillusioned at Old Trafford, that’s already proving a gruellingly difficult challenge.