Manchester United’s world record transfer Paul Pogba said that critics expect too much from him because of the fee and insisted that he is doing his job as a midfielder.
In is first press conference since returning to Manchester, the France international said, “People are looking me saying ‘Pogba should score goals’, ‘Pogba should do this’ — I think you are putting me like as a striker, defender and midfielder.”
“The people are looking at me. They judge me for not scoring goals... I am doing a job. I am a midfield player and people think I’m an attacking player,” he told British media.
Pogba, who returned to United from Juventus for 89 million pounds ($111.86 million) in August, has been under immense scrutiny from the press, pundits and former players and has often received flak for netting only seven goals in 43 appearances.
“When I give some assists to people and we don’t score it can happen, nobody talks about this — but it’s fine because they want me to score goals because of the mountain of the transfer,” the 24-year-old was quoted as saying.
Poga even came out and said that it’s time people forgot his world record transfer fee because that is not a reflection of on-field performance.
“We can forget about the transfer fee. It’s in the past. The transfer is something else, on the pitch is something else,” Sky Sports quoted him as saying.
“Sometimes if I can make the team win, I will do it. If I was scoring the goals that hit the crossbar, I don’t think people would speak like this. But it’s football. We just enjoy it, we love it,” he added.
In the Premier League so far, Pogba has managed 30 shots on target and his 2,625 touches put him second only to Liverpool’s James Milner. To put it into perspective, Chelsea’s N’Golo Kanté has made 200 fewer. Pogba has also made more than 2,000 passes, again ranking him second in the category, behind Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson, according to The Guardian.
“I came to United to do big challenges. We have everything to do it – we have the manager, the staff, the players. We have to go back to the Champions League. That’s the objective, that’s the big one,” Pogba said of his team’s aim.
United are currently fifth in the standings and are set to play Chelsea on Sunday. Before that, they have the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final against Belgian side Anderlecht on Thursday.
