The Manchester United Midfielder accused José Mourinho of “going against players” and making them feel like “they don’t exist any more”.
Mourinho
made Pogba the world’s most expensive player after his 2016 appointment as
Manchester United manager. Pogba was instrumental as United claimed a League
Cup and Europa League double in 2017, but the pair had an uneasy relationship
before Mourinho was sacked in December 2018 and succeeded by Ole Gunnar
Solskjær.
Mourinho’s
relationship with some of his players had deteriorated following that first
campaign and there were reports of a training-ground spat with Pogba after the
France midfielder player was stripped of the United vice-captaincy in September
2018.
“What I
have now with Ole is different because he wouldn’t go against the players,”
Pogba said in a Sky Sports interview. “It’s not like you put them on the side
and they don’t exist any more. I think that’s the difference between Mourinho
and Ole.
“Once I had
a great relationship with Mourinho. Everybody sees that and the next day you
don’t know what happened. That’s the strange thing I had with Mourinho. And I
can not explain to you because, even me, I don’t know.”
Pogba’s
comments came after United piled the pressure on Mourinho with a 3-1 win at
Tottenham last Sunday. Solskjær and Mourinho clashed in a heated exchange of
words after the United manager was was unhappy when Son Heung-min went down in
the buildup to Edinson Cavani’s controversial disallowed goal.
Mourinho
said he was left “very disappointed” by Solskjær’s claims that he would not
feed his son if he had behaved like Son, but Pogba accused the Portuguese of
using deflection tactics to take the focus from Tottenham’s performance.
Pogba said:
“I am sure Mourinho said something that made people speak. That’s what he does.
We got the result that we wanted. Ole knows it and we enjoyed that moment. We
know Mourinho and what he likes. We don’t need this.
“We just
focus on us, 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. Everybody knows it. It’s very Mourinho.”