Sometimes it’s not easy being a World Cup winner. That might not be how Kylian Mbappé feels as he cruises along with Paris Saint-Germain, already eight points ahead of the pack after eight games. But for two men whose contributions were just as fundamental to France’s victory in July, the new season has turned out very differently.
N’Golo Kanté, the finest player in the world in one of the most demanding roles in any football team, has been displaced from his position in the Chelsea side by a new manager’s tactical rejig. In no time at all Maurizio Sarri has brought a sense of joy and adventure back to Stamford Bridge, but at the cost of depriving football lovers of the pleasure of watching Kanté do what he does with such unassuming brilliance.
In order to accommodate the arrival of Jorginho, the favoured deep-lying playmaker Sarri brought with him from Napoli, Kanté has been moved to a kind of inside-right position, sometimes switching with Willian, the player outside him. His skills of anticipation and interception are now redundant, along with his Makelele-like gift for starting moves with passes of perfect weight and angle. Now he spends his time waiting, with his back to goal, for the pass he once would have given, looking a little bit lost and probably hoping that those special skills will not be blunted by disuse.
It is not a complete waste of a footballer. In the second half against Liverpool on Saturday he played two wonderful passes, a diagonal crossfield ball to Eden Hazard on the left and a through ball for Willian, either of which might have produced a goal. There was also a quickly taken free-kick to Hazard, bringing a terrific save from Alisson. So perhaps he can become a kind of Paul Scholes, opening up defences from a position just behind the forwards. But there must be a chance that Sarri will conclude, sooner or later, that he needs a specialist there. The thought of Kanté on the bench is surely too much for any right-thinking football fan to bear.
What we know is that the very best place for him is alongside a man for whom the Premier League has also become a less friendly environment. Paul Pogba’s qualities – established not just by a World Cup winner’s medal but by four consecutive Serie A titles with Juventus – flourish best with someone like Kanté alongside him. And maybe, given the tactical shifts at Chelsea, that opportunity will present itself.
In terms of dynamic influence on the team, Pogba ought to be United’s new Bryan Robson or Roy Keane. That seemed to be his destiny during his first spell at Old Trafford, and the way he flourished in Italy earned him a vastly expensive recall. Over the past two years there have been occasions when his performance justified the size of the fee, but others when his commitment seemed to fluctuate.
That is not the real Pogba. As Didier Deschamps, his international manager, observed in an interview at the weekend, he offers a positive presence in the dressing room and is fully capable of dedicating himself to an objective. “There is an image of Pogba that doesn’t correspond to who he is,” Deschamps said.
Does Mourinho know who Pogba really is? Has he taken the trouble to find out? When he made him vice-captain, was it with the intention of bestowing real authority or just a gesture aimed at demonstrating to others that he was giving this troublesome Frenchman every chance? And did he recognise the effect that removing the vice-captaincy might have?
Pogba can still be central to a revived United in a way that might deflect his agent’s interest in another massive pay-day, this time from Barcelona. But he needs the right conditions in order to give his best. What better way of convincing him of the club’s confidence in him than recreating the professional and personal relationship that, despite the obvious contrasts of temperament, so clearly flourished between him and Kanté during the summer?
This is the kind of transfer that could be attempted above the head of the manager, who must surely be on his way out. Some of us were foolish enough to imagine that the responsibility of living up to Ferguson’s legacy would force Mourinho to abandon his more tiresome and destructive tendencies. But virtually from day one in Manchester he showed that his ego had achieved critical mass. In his third season, the level of sulking, scowling, simmering and sneering has become intolerable.
From Pogba and Alexis Sánchez to Jesse Lingard and Luke Shaw, he seems to have lost an ability that was once central to his achievements, that of getting the players to take the pitch ready to fight for each other and to die for him. Gradually corroded by the acid of unchecked self-regard, it is unlikely to return.In recent weeks United’s performances have been as insipid as the washed-out pink away shirts that provide all too accurate a metaphor for their current state. The dressing room is full of players performing well below their highest standards, some of them feeling humiliated and disgruntled, perhaps almost to the point of mutiny. Individual and collective progress is at a standstill. Mourinho’s two predecessors were sacked with the team standing seventh and fifth in the table. They are currently 10th, and looking as if they can expect no better.
Manchester United need what Chelsea required when Mourinho’s second spell in London was brought to an unhappy end: someone to apply balm, to bring optimism, to restore a sense of logical evolution. And to spend whatever it takes to get N’Golo Kanté alongside Paul Pogba, both of them freed to do what comes naturally once more.
The Guardian Sport
