Manchester United can't bank on Jose Mourinho or Paul Pogba to win title - the only way out is to offload both

Paul Pogba and Jose Mourinho [Courtesy]

The only way out of the Jose Mourinho-Paul Pogba saga for Manchester United is to offload them both at the end of the ­season.

Or, in Pogba’s case, maybe even in January.

I just don’t see a way for their ­relationship to be repaired and, frankly, I don’t see either of them leading United to a Premier League title again any time soon.

And substituting Pogba in the embarrassing defeat at West Ham will have done nothing to build bridges.

I genuinely thought Mourinho would change the way he approached the game when he finally got the keys to Old Trafford.

But I realise now that he won’t adapt for any club, and I’ll happily have a pound with anyone who wants one that he will leave at the end of the season.

A lot of you will think, ‘Well, hang on, if Mourinho’s going to leave then why doesn’t Pogba just sit tight and the new manager can build a team around him? He is a World Cup winner after all’.

But I don’t think the Frenchman is suited to the Premier League and the type of football you need to play if you want to win it.

Look at Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham, proponents of high-tempo, high-octane football.

It’s all about mobility with those clubs and that’s not ­really Pogba’s game.

I know people will jump down my throat and say ‘who would you rather have, Pogba or James Milner, Pogba or Jordan Henderson?’

But this is an acknowledgement that professional football at the top level is about mobility and Pogba is rangy rather than super-mobile. So, with that in mind, where do you play him?

Do you play him as a creative No.10? I don’t think that’s his best position.

Do you play him slightly to the right? He did well doing that for Juventus and, at times, for France but that’s a bit of a waste of £89million.

For that sort of money you want someone affecting everything in the spine of the team. Is he a defensive midfielder? Not really.

The relationship between the pair seems to have hit an all-time low [Courtesy]

Which all reinforces what we’ve known about United for two years now – they have bought a load of superstars but the jigsaw just isn’t fitting together.

If United are going to win the Premier League again soon then it will be with faster, smaller, more mobile players because that’s the way our top flight has gone over the last few years.

And that has never been Mourinho’s style. He always wants to bludgeon ­opponents to death with big, strong, ­powerful teams.

That’s not going to work anymore. ­Maybe in one-off games but not over the course of a 38-game season.

Even Chelsea under Maurizio Sarri and Arsenal under Unai Emery are more ­dynamic and on the front foot now, so it’s not like several years ago when there were a few ­distinct styles within the Big Six.

If you’re going to win the Premier League then you have to join that group and I’m not convinced Pogba (right, with his gaffer) is the type of player who is going to help get United there.

I wrote last week in my Daily Mirror column that I’d give it another 10 or 15 games if I were Mourinho to see if struggling striker Alexis Sanchez could find the form that convinced United to sign him and, if not, a parting of the ways would be the answer. So I’m conscious that it may sound like my answer to all United’s ills is, ‘Get rid, get rid, get rid’.

But I had plenty of United fans agreeing with me on Sanchez, so it will be interesting to see how many agree with me on Pogba and Mourinho.

As far as those two stand, the question Manchester United fans should be asking themselves is this: ‘In the 2019-20 season, can you bank on either of them to win you a Premier League title?’

I just don’t think you can and that would tell me everything I’d need to know if ­United were my team.