Paul Pogba's miserable season continued as he was criticised for his "very concerning" body language as France suffered a humiliating 2-0 defeat to Finland.
The 27-year-old midfielder captained France and played almost an hour, by which time the world champions were already two goals down, at home, to a team ranked 55th in the world.
Pogba's display in the first half was criticised by a French news outlet, who claimed: "Paul Pogba's body language very concerning in this first 45 - generally strolling around the pitch, pointing to other players to be passed to rather than him and his longer balls have almost exclusively been wayward."
Damning. Other football fans pointed specifically at Finland's second goal, a screamer by Onni Valakari.
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France are caught on the counterattack and Manchester United man Pogba tracks back but doesn't look particularly effective as he stands stock still while Valakari takes aim and fires the ball past Steve Mandanda in goal.
However Steven Nzonzi is the man first to Valakari so others have pointed out it's probably his responsibility to block the shot.
In other words, it's a typical reaction to a Pogba display: completely divisive.
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One thing few can argue with, however, is that Pogba was struggling this season even before France's humbling by Finland. His own international manager Didier Deschamps said this week that the player "cannot be happy" with his situation at Manchester United.
"He is in a situation with his club where he cannot be happy, neither with his playing time, nor with his positioning," said Deschamps. "He is not in his best period. He has had a series of injuries and Covid-19, which has hit him quite hard. He needs to find his rhythm."
That's for sure. The midfielder looked completely out of sorts in United's 1-0 defeat to Arsenal at the start of this month, giving away the game-changing penalty with a rash challenge.
Post-match, Pogba spoke to BBC per utdreport and stated: "I gave away a foul like this and cost us the goal today - I am not the best defensively in the box and I can improve on that and do better.
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"We know it's a poor performance. Myself, I cannot give a foul away like this - I thought I would touch the ball but I didn't. [I] cost us the goal today with the penalty."
There have been reports since that United are willing to sell their club-record signing next summer, for a fee of only £53 million.
Real Madrid are still said to be interested in a player who has so many attributes and, on his day, can clearly be a world-class midfielder.
But he hasn't shown it often enough for Man United and he certainly did not show it on Wednesday as he wore the captain's armband against Finland. Any more displays like this and Real might be trying to knock a few more million off that price tag.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Paul Pogba, Football News, Football, Manchester United, Didier Deschamps, Man utd, Premier League, France
