You know when you get given a really expensive coffee maker for Christmas but can’t figure out the cappuccino setting so just use it for the fancy espresso cups and ignore the fancy stuff? Well this is the football equivalent.
José Mourinho is known for drumming all attacking impetus out of his players to fit his system, so we probably shouldn’t be surprised by his comments about Paul Pogba. We just didn’t expect it to happen quite so early on in his tenure.
“He’s a top player and I think he could be a phenomenal central defender,” Mourinho said of the £89m midfielder.
“With the quality of his pass, with his aerial game, with his agility in such a big body, for his defensive side of the game, coming from the back with the ball, he would be a phenomenal central defender, too.”
Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
We’re not sure where the revelation – made to Sky Sports – fits within Mourinho’s history of creative positioning.
In fact you could probably make an entire starting XI out of players who occupied one position before signing for a Mourinho team and playing somewhere completely different.
It’s probably slap bang in the middle of Michael Essien at right-back and Robert Huth up front, when it comes to the Mourinho scale.
Hopefully he continues along this path and sticks Sergio Romero on the wing, or gives Henrikh Mkhitaryan a run of games in goal, or plays Wayne Rooney in midf… no. No!
Colm Parkinson chats to Kerry GAA legend, and author, Kieran Donaghy in a special edition of The GAA Hour. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes
