Pogba launches incredible blast on Mourinho, opens up on their fractured relationship
Football
By
Mirror
| Apr 17, 2021
Paul Pogba has slammed Jose Mourinho for "going against the players" during his Manchester United tenure in a scathing attack on his former manager.
The Frenchman was taken back to Old Trafford in a world record transfer by Mourinho and had a strong working relationship, though things soon soured when he was stripped of the vice-captaincy in 2018.
Mourinho denied rumours of a rift between the pair, though Pogba was soon a frequent target for his criticism during a difficult period at United.
Now the midfielder has opened up on the turbulent spell and pointed out what has changed under new boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
"What I have now with Ole is different, he wouldn't go against the players," Pogba told Sky Sports . "He wouldn't go against the players.
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"Maybe Ole wouldn't pick them, but it's not like he puts them on the side like they don't exist anymore. That's the difference between Mourinho and Ole.
"Once I had a great relationship with Mourinho, everybody saw that, and the next day you don't know what happened. That's the strange thing I had with Mourinho and I cannot explain to you because even I don't know. So, yeah."
Pogba was initially a key player in Mourinho's side which won several major honours including the Europa League in 2017.
It was after winning the World Cup with France that Pogba began to be linked with a move to Barcelona and reportedly told Mourinho he wanted to leave.
Mourinho responded by taking the decision to remove him as the club's "second captain", while training ground footage showed an apparently hostile exchange between the pair.
“Manchester United is bigger than anyone and I have to defend that,” Mourinho said at the time, though played down any suggestions of hostility between him and Pogba, insisting "it’s just a relation player-manager, it’s good.”
Pogba soon found himself dropped from the team however, with Mourinho allegedly referring to him as a "virus" in front of his teammates in the dressing room.
Eventually, it was Mourinho though who lost the power struggle between them, with Pogba now thriving under Solskjaer's watch.
And it was the United star who had the last laugh when they met Mourinho's Tottenham at the weekend, with Pogba taking the opportunity to have another swipe.
"We won the game, he lost the game and he doesn't want to speak about the game, he wants to speak about the dad of someone, that's what he does," Pogba added. "Everybody knows him, it's very Mourinho."