Evaluating Paul Pogba's Man United career: A flop, or not his fault?

Editor's Note: It was confirmed on June 1 that Paul Pogba is leaving Manchester United this month. Originally published on May 19, this is our review of his time at Old Trafford.

Ah, the Paul Pogba era at Manchester United. A quiet, uncomplicated six-year stretch that everyone will look back on in the exact same way.

Just kidding!

Pogba's six seasons at Manchester United were among the most polarizing in recent memory. A large and loud subsection of the commentariat have held Pogba up as a symbol for everything that's wrong with the once-great club. Meanwhile, others see one of the most talented soccer players in the world, a domineering midfielder who's flourished everywhere else he's been, simply unable to overcome all the dysfunction around him.

Ultimately, Pogba was supposed to be a transformative signing for United -- a world-record transfer that proved that the best players in the world still wanted to play at Old Trafford and who showed that the club would be challenging for major titles once again. Instead, with Pogba at the club, United never seriously challenged for the Premier League and reached the Champions League quarter finals just once. They finished sixth in Pogba's first season back at the club, and they're in the exact same spot with one game left before he leaves Manchester for a second time.

So, what is Pogba's legacy at United? How is he remembered at the club? And how well did he perform when he was actually on the field? Mark Ogden and Ryan O'Hanlon are here to sort through the noise and give you some answers.

Pogba was a great teammate ...

There is a deep-rooted myth when it comes to Pogba's time at Manchester United. It is that the France midfielder is a "divisive" figure, a problem player for every manager that has been charged with finding a way to make him perform as the world-class player that the club signed him to be, and that he has been a troublesome influence within the dressing room. All of the above have been reinforced by Pogba's disappointing performances on the pitch since his £89.1m return to United from Juventus in Aug 2016 -- he left United for Juventus for nothing more than an £800,000 compensation fee four years prior to that -- with the 29-year-old never quite living up to the hype that greeted his then-world record transfer back to Old Trafford.

His outspoken agent (the late Mino Raiola) and Pogba's apparently carefree, smiling persona have also damaged the player's reputation with the club's supporters, who grew to regard him as somebody with no real affection or commitment to the team. Fans chanted "F--- off Pogba" as he walked off the pitch following last month's Old Trafford win against Norwich, and by responding with a cupped ear gesture, Pogba underlined the breakdown of his relationship with the United supporters.

But let's reel back to the Pogba myth; it's a thread that has run through the majority of his United career and led to the present situation, with him leaving as a free agent this summer with many fans happy to see the back of him.

United sources have told ESPN that within the club, the reality of Pogba could not be further from the outsiders' perception of him being a disruptive figure. He is regarded as a leader within the squad, but a player who has time for those outside the dressing room and one who understands the responsibilities that come with playing for a club of United's stature. On one occasion, a senior teammate refused to fulfill an obligatory pre-match interview for a broadcast rights holder, opting instead to drive away from the club's training ground while the film crew were waiting to speak to him. On hearing of the player's actions -- and the problem it created for the club's media team -- Pogba volunteered to step in and do the interview himself, which meant one of United's press officers didn't have to answer to the rights-holders and his own bosses.

There have been numerous other examples of Pogba being a bridge between the squad and the club staff, with sources telling ESPN he is one of the few players prepared to directly address issues with teammates. ESPN has been told that Pogba is, and has been, a leader within the squad -- largely a positive one. But while he's well-liked at United's Carrington training ground, there's also an acceptance he can be blind to the kind of issues that have consistently angered supporters and some within the club hierarchy.

Pogba's social media footprint is huge -- 53.7 million followers on Instagram and 10.1 million followers on Twitter -- and his commercial value has unquestionably been exploited by United during his six years at the club, with the player's image the most prominent of any at the club in terms of major sponsors and partners. But Pogba has at times naively misused that status. In January of 2017, he launched a Pogba Twitter emoji on the day United played Liverpool at Old Trafford, but ended up being ridiculed and accused of taking his focus off his team's biggest game of the season after he conceded a penalty in a handball incident. (The game ended 1-1.)

Emerging with a light blue-and-white Mohawk on the day of a derby game against Manchester City in April, 2018, also led to Pogba being accused of disrespecting United by supporters -- former United captain Gary Neville described it as "ridiculous" and said "he doesn't help himself" -- but Pogba silenced his critics on that occasion by scoring twice in a 3-2 win, a result that delayed City's title celebrations.

Heading off to glamorous locations like Dubai and Miami while recovering from injuries, at the same time as posting social media images, has also worked against Pogba, so it is fair to say he has been a lightning rod for negative headlines, both for himself and the club.

Had his performances been better and more consistent, the Pogba sideshow would not have been such an issue for his detractors, but it has ultimately tarnished his reputation and impacted how his time at United will be judged. But a disruptive, malevolent force? That's simply never been the case. -- Mark Ogden

... but he was also a signing that didn't work out

Ultimately, the Paul Pogba signing was a massive failure for United. Even if you're the rare inhabitant of Planet Earth who doesn't have an opinion on Pogba, you won't have a hard time understanding why.

For starters, United already had Pogba, then let him join Juventus for free in 2012, and then had to pay a then-world-record fee of $115.5 million to bring him back in the summer of 2016. It's not like Pogba was some no-name prospect who went to a smaller club, proved everyone including his previous club wrong and then earned a shock-move back to the big time. No, everyone knew he was the best central-midfield prospect in the world. He joined a better team than Manchester United and immediately became a key player. The business was busted from the start.

So, the process of the purchase was bad -- and so was the result.

At Juventus, a 19-year-old Pogba played 50.6% of the Serie A minutes in his first season with the club. The following year, that leapt up to 89.7%, then down to 61.7%, and then back up to 88.3% in his last season in Turin. All in all, Pogba played a healthy 72.6% of the domestic minutes across his four seasons with Juventus. They won Serie A every year and reached the Champions League final in 2015. Still a couple of years ahead of his prime, Pogba had already become a mainstay for one of the best teams in the world.

And while Pogba has been many things for Manchester United, a mainstay has not been one of them.

Heading into the final weekend of this season, Pogba has appeared in 59.8% of the Premier League minutes in his six seasons back at Old Trafford. The first three seasons were similar to his Juve years -- 76.2, 62.9 and 88% of the minutes, in order -- but he hasn't broken 55% of the minutes in either of the past three. He'll finish his final season for United by appearing in 39.4 of the potential Premier League minutes.

It really doesn't matter how well Pogba played when he was on the field. Even if you're universally considered the best player in the world, your performance won't be worth more than a hundred million dollars if you're only on the field half the time.

Then again, the same has been true for most of the other players acquired for similar transfer fees to what United paid Juventus to acquire Pogba. Outside of Real Madrid's move for Cristiano Ronaldo, PSG's move for Kylian Mbappe and maybe Madrid's acquisition of Gareth Bale, all of the other $100-million-plus transfers were basically busts. Juventus paid $128.7m to acquire Ronaldo with the stated intention of winning the Champions League; they didn't come close, and they also lost Serie A for the first time in over a decade. But at least Ronaldo played; he appeared in 82% of the domestic minutes while in Italy.

In order, here's the domestic-minutes share for the eight other nine-figure transfer-fee players we haven't already mentioned:

• Neymar, Barcelona to PSG for $244.2 million: 48.4%

• Ousmane Dembele, Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona for $154 million: 36%

• Philippe Coutinho, Liverpool to Barcelona for $148.5 million: 33.3%

• Joao Felix, Benfica to Atletico Madrid for $139.92 million: 45.1%

• Antoine Griezmann, Atletico Madrid to Barcelona for $132 million: 75.7%

• Jack Grealish, Aston Villa to Manchester City for $129.3 million: 57.6%

• Eden Hazard, Chelsea to Real Madrid for $126.5 million: 22.9%

• Romelu Lukaku, Inter Milan to Chelsea for $124.3 million: 46.5%

Most massive transfers simply don't work out, and most of the most expensive players ever simply don't get on the field all that much. In fact, Pogba has played more often for United than all but one of those eight players did for their new clubs. It was bad business for United, but hey, I guess it could've been worse. -- Ryan O'Hanlon

Was managerial or off-field chaos to blame?

Sir Alex Ferguson was the first Manchester United manager to discover that Pogba was a different kind of challenge.

United had signed Pogba from French club Le Havre as a 16-year-old in July, 2009, with the teenager described as a "new Patrick Vieira" by those who had watched him develop as a youngster. But after growing frustrated by a lack of first-team opportunities at United, Pogba and Raiola made it clear he would reject a new contract unless his progress was rewarded with time on the pitch with the senior team. Experienced teammates, including Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra, attempted to convince Pogba to soften his stance and be patient, but Pogba and Raiola held firm and Ferguson stubbornly refused to concede ground. So after just 3 first-team appearances, Pogba left United for Juventus at the end of his contract in 2011-12.

"We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign," Ferguson said in 2015. "But Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco. He and I were like oil and water."

Despite the acrimonious end to his first spell at United, Pogba was back on the club's radar as early as 2013, with newly-appointed executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward keen to re-sign the player. It took three years of nudging Raiola before a deal could be done, but when United brought Pogba back, his arrival was supposed to herald the start of a new dawn under Jose Mourinho, with Pogba regarded as the player who would lead the club's revival as a side capable of challenging for honours.

Although Pogba and Mourinho enjoyed a harmonious first season together, winning the Carabao Cup and Europa League in 2016-17, the wheels began to fall off at the start of the following season. Pogba suffered a hamstring injury against FC Basel in September, 2017, and then angered Mourinho by flying to Miami during his rehabilitation. From that point on, the pair's relationship continued to sour. A touchline row between the two men after Pogba was substituted during a defeat at Spurs in January 2018 preceded the player being dropped for the first time.

At the same time, the arrival of Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal impacted Pogba's role in the team, with Mourinho playing the France international in a deeper role with more defensive responsibilities. His creativity suffered, and Pogba's lack of defensive discipline led to more friction between player and manager.

When Mourinho was fired after the defeat at Liverpool in December, 2018, Pogba watches on the from the substitutes' bench having been dropped again. The negativity of the pair's relationship is then borne out by comments by both in the months and years that have followed. But while Pogba and Mourinho clashed to the extent that their relationship disintegrated, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's arrival as manager allowed the player to press the reset button at Old Trafford.

Solskjaer had built a strong relationship with Pogba as reserve-team manager during the player's early days at United and the midfielder's form in the opening months of Solskjaer's spell as interim boss helped earn the Norwegian a permanent contract. But while Solskjaer and Pogba had a good relationship, Solskjaer struggled to get the best from the player with the manager never able to settle on his best position, using him both defensively and in an advanced role.

Sources have told ESPN that Solskjaer was prepared to offload Pogba in 2019 in order to raise funds for new signings, but was ultimately reluctant to green light such a deal out of concern that he would be given the full proceeds to reinvest in the team.

Under Solskjaer, Pogba's career stalled. The lack of coaching expertise under Solskjaer impacted Pogba and the whole team and, at the peak of his career, Pogba became inconsistent, injury-prone and unreliable on the pitch.

The same story continued under Ralf Rangnick, Solskjaer's interim successor at Old Trafford. Pogba has made just 14 appearances under Rangnick, scoring once, with injuries once again keeping him on the sidelines for long periods. His last appearance in a United shirt saw him limp off after 10 minutes of the 4-0 defeat at Liverpool last month.

In many ways, it summed up his United career -- Pogba had so much more to give, but it all fizzled out far too quickly. -- Ogden

Putting Pogba's move, performance in context

Although the fee United paid for Pogba has since been surpassed more than 10 times, Pogba remains the most expensive midfielder ever. Among the three outfield positions, attackers cost the most, followed by defenders and then midfielders. And among the 50 most expensive transfers of all time, only three of them occupy what you'd consider "traditional" midfield roles. Plus one of them, Arthur, doesn't really count because he moved to Juventus from Barcelona in a swap deal for Miralem Pjanic with a fee attached just to make the accounting work. So, you've got Pogba, Frenkie De Jong ($94.6 million from Ajax to Barcelona, 17th-most expensive player ever) ... and that's it.

Transfer fees aren't true stand-ins for the value clubs ascribe to players; that'd be a combination of contracts and transfer fees. But this still serves as a rough proxy. In other words, United paid a premium for a player in what the market considers to be a non-premium position.

Of course, the thought was that Pogba could be a truly transformative player despite spending the majority of his time far away from either goal. At Juventus, he showed an ability to play deeper, to flourish in a shuttling and ball-winning role, and an ability to contribute to the attack. His value wasn't just in his omnipotent skillset; it was also in the fact that his presence made it easier to build out the rest of your squad. The Pogba we saw at Juventus was a player who could fill whatever hole in whatever role you needed.

At United, that just hasn't been the case. One of the ongoing issues is the thing that was never supposed to be an issue: the question of where to play Pogba. He's spent time as part of a double pivot, as one of the two advanced midfielders in a midfield three, a traditional no. 10 and even as a left winger. This lack of a plan no doubt stems from the incredible, ongoing mismanagement at all levels of the club, but a nine-figure signing is supposed to be able to overcome whatever suboptimal situation he gets put into. Pogba was going to balance the midfield, but the midfield's been out of balance ever since he got there.

The big change from Juventus to United was the drop in defensive output. In Serie A, he averaged 7.4 ball recoveries per 90 minutes, intercepted the ball 2.1 times per every 1,000 opponent touches, and won 4.3 tackles per those same 1,000 touches. In England, everything tailed off: 7.0 ball recoveries, 1.5 interceptions and 2.5 tackles. Without that defensive bite, Pogba always had to be paired with at least one other more defensive midfielder at United. At Juventus, he and Arturo Vidal were the more defensive midfielders, in front of Andrea Pirlo.

And yet the drop-off in defensive production wasn't paired with an increase on the other end. At Juventus, he averaged 0.44 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes. At Manchester United, he averaged 0.44 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes. His number of touches in the penalty area (3.2 at Juve, 3.1 at United) and passes into the penalty area (5.1 at Juve, 4.5 at United) remained roughly the same. The main uptick came from his involvement in buildup play, as his number of passes into the final-third increased from 7.3 in Italy to 10.5 in England.

Now, I'm judging Pogba on an impossible curve here thanks to a transfer fee that essentially required him to be the greatest midfielder of all time. The Pogba at Juventus suggested the possibility of a player who could score and create goals at the rate of an attacker -- Pogba's output of 0.44 NPG+A/90 is the same as the average forward in the Premier League this season -- while also functioning as an elite midfielder, winning the ball back and pushing it up field. With him in your team, you would basically get an extra attacker on the field without sacrificing anything defensively.

Given his age and potential to improve into something even better, you can understand why United -- and frankly, everyone else in the world -- wanted him so badly. Instead, they simply got one of the best midfielders in the world, not the best ever.

The numbers don't lie. United were significantly better when Pogba was on the field over the past six years: a plus-0.76 goal differential per 90 minutes, compared to a plus-0.36 with him off it. And over the past calendar year, he still ranks in the 90th-percentile or higher among midfielders across the Big Five leagues in shots, goals, expected goals, assists, expected assists, dribbles, touches in the penalty area, and progressive passes received. And he's above the 80th percentile in both progressive passes and progressive carries. With the ball, he gives you everything.

He never really got to play it at United, but he's the perfect "free eight" -- one of two essentially attacking midfielders who plays in front of a lone holding midfielder and behind a front three. They break into the box, play decisive passes, and don't have to do much defensive work because their teams always have the ball. He'll likely be a key contributor wherever he goes next, whenever he's on the field -- and that's what happened at Old Trafford. Unfortunately, United needed him to be even better than that. -- O'Hanlon