Man Utd Owners Put The Club In This Position — Saha

It is not fair to expect Paul Pogba to carry Manchester United, according to ex-player, Louis Saha.

Saha has come out to say that Man Utd has actually shot themselves in the foot with some poor recruitment and Pogba cannot be blamed for that.

Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer spearheaded a change in approach during the summer transfer which saw the Old Trafford hierarchy favouring emerging home-grown talent over proven and trusted players.

However, Saha believes the reality is that too much is presently expected of the players at the club.

His words, “Now, you look, and the excuse is, ‘Pogba hasn’t played.’ It is crazy to put a club in this position. I’m sorry but you can’t put the blame on [Marcus] Rashford, you can’t put the blame on [Anthony] Martial, you can’t put the blame on the newcomers.

“Who is big enough in that squad to be saying, ‘This is falling down’? Apart from Pogba. It is unfair on him, unfair on the squad. It is right that I hear Gary Neville complain about the chemistry that has been built. You could put any manager in right now; I’m sorry, he will struggle.

“You can say, alright he should not have allowed [Romelu] Lukaku and [Alexis] Sanchez to leave but the damage was already done because those guys didn’t want to stay. So it is better to actually clean up in some ways, let’s say, with respect.

“But the actual power of the United history, the United set-up, has been fettered by three or four transfer windows. It was like a shotgun in two feet. They put themselves in that situation, not giving the platform to fight back.”

On the way forward, “There are no indicators of what should be happening at certain times in the game, so it is a struggle for a manager to implement that in one go. It will take one year to actually fix that. It is really hard.

“It takes time. Give him the budget every manager has had to get the right players. You have to pay whatever you have to pay. I would say he has been courageous to let Lukaku and Sanchez go. He put himself in danger because people start to criticise. But that was the right move.

“In six years, the board have changed strategy, changed managers. Now it is more for the youth. Before it was like ‘guaranteed’ players.

“But you are losing the tag of Champions League, so it is harder; not getting [Paulo] Dybala, for example. Those guys want Champions League because they want to play for their national team. It is a vicious cycle.”