Paul Pogba is recognised as one of the most talented midfielders in the world, but that wasn’t his position at the very beginning of his footballing career.
The Manchester United star was actually a striker to begin with, however, it was a desire to see more of the ball that eventually saw him get pushed back into the no.6 role that we’re familiar in seeing him play in the current day.
He told the UTD podcast: “I started as a striker and then a no.10 and then a no.6. Thank God, I didn’t go to centre-back! It was because I wanted to touch the ball too much.
”I was the striker and dropping too much, so one coach told me: ‘Okay, play the no.10 and touch the ball more’. I still loved the ball too much and had too many touches so he put me at no.6.“
Pogba started his professional career at Old Trafford before moving to Juventus in 2012. He then came back to United in what was then a world-record transfer fee of £89million four years later.
The Frenchman has played alongside some world-class talent and claims he learned a lot from the likes of United legend Paul Scholes and Italy icon Andrea Pirlo, who he played with at Juve.
He added: “You learn a lot and you look at them. I really learned and have been learning.
“It was unbelievable for me, seeing them training like that, and it pushed me.
‘Okay, I have to work hard and have a lot more to do. Pirlo and Scholes, those are midfielders who control the game, the players to look at, and I learned from them, a lot.”
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Pogba has had a frustrating time this season, making just eight appearances for United having nursed ankle and foot injuries throughout the campaign.
On his injury woes this term, he said: “You have to be very patient because, well my injury, I don’t know if people really know what happened.
“So I had a foot injury, which came in the game against Southampton. It was early this season and so I carried this for a long time, training and trying to be playing with it. After I stopped, I found I had a fracture.
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“I had a cast on it, a plaster-cast, so it went very well but too well. The bone got bigger and so, when I came back again, I played those two games against Watford and Newcastle, I could feel something again.
“So I had to have an operation and now here I am. I don’t feel anything and, hopefully, I’ll be back very soon.”
