According to the latest reports, Manchester United talisman Paul Pogba has opened up and revealed what was said in the dressing room after the Red Devils suffered a 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Everton on Sunday. The Frenchman insisted that these kinds of performances are not really acceptable as a Manchester United player or close to anyone associated with the club.
Manchester United looked revolutionized when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took over the reins at the club back in December from Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho as the caretaker. The 56-year-old ‘Special One’ was not able to get the desired results from the club and the performances were poor as well which led to his dismissal. But Solskjaer came in and strung a bunch of positive results at the Theatre Of Dreams, helping the club get closer to finishing inside the top 4. United also made it to the quarterfinals of the Champions League in dramatic fashion after turning around a 2-0 deficit against Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint Germain to win 3-1 at the Parc Des Princes.
🗣 “If you want to play at this club, it has to mean more. I want my team to be the hardest working team in this league. I’m going to be successful here, and there are players here that won’t be part of that successful team.”
– Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. pic.twitter.com/LHj7O8Hzdb
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) April 21, 2019
These impressive results gave Solskjaer the job on a permanent basis, but things haven’t gone as smoothly as he would have liked ever since. La Liga giants Barcelona dumped Manchester United out of the Champions League in the quarterfinals of the elite tournament in a 4-0 aggregate thrashing. This was followed by another 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Merseyside club Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday.
The game at Everton was dubbed as one of the worst performances from a Manchester United side in a long time and a few players looked like they just did not want to play for the badge. One player who has turned his career around since Solskjaer’s appointment has been World Cup winning French midfielder Paul Pogba but 26-year-old has been unable to get to his best over the last few games. Pogba is United’s top scorer this season, netting 15 times and notching up nine assists as well in all competitions, but the talisman stated that the outing at Everton was disrespectful to everyone associated with Manchester United.
Speaking ahead of the Manchester derby on Wednesday, Pogba spoke to Sky Sports about the 4-0 loss at Everton: “We let the manager speak, the staff speak and they spoke the truth and they said what happened in the game and it is not respectful of ourselves. What we did on the pitch was not respectful to our team-mates, for the staff, for the people, for the kit man, for everyone. For their work, they put their life on us, the team and this club. What we showed on the pitch, we did not give them the joy back and that is why we are angry with ourselves. We want to do better for sure and we have to. The reaction has to be there. I want to say [to the fans], and I know it may not be enough, but the fans want a reaction from the players and the only way to apologize to them is to give everything on the pitch, do our best, create chances, score goals, defend, work for the team and we can even lose games, but with a good performance and pride on the pitch. That is how we should apologize to the fans, just to give everything for us, for the club, for the shirt, for the team-mates and for ourselves as well because it is us on the pitch and we cannot perform as we did.”
