Pogba ‘only has three United allies’; Mourinho ‘p***ed off’

Manchester United have set their price for Paul Pogba, with Jose Mourinho becoming increasingly ‘p***ed off’ with the midfielder.

Pogba joined United from Juventus in summer 2016 for £89.3million – a world-record fee at the time.

The Frenchman had a fine first season at the club despite constant criticism, but has found it much more difficult to settle in his second campaign.

Pogba has been dropped in a number of games and is being substituted more often than usual when he does start.

Pogba’s relationship with Mourinho has deteriorated to an extent that the Portuguese is willing to offload him this summer as part of his ‘radical overhaul’.

The Daily Mail claim that United will acquiesce to the manager’s wishes if so, but will ‘demand’ £120 to £140m for Pogba.

Elsewhere in the paper, Pogba and Mourinho’s clash is compared to the one which saw Sir Alex Ferguson sell David Beckham in 2003.

Chris Wheeler and Simon Jones say that sources ‘see similarities’ in both situations, with Mourinho and Pogba having ‘hardly spoken’ since Sunday’s defeat to West Brom.

Mourinho is ‘still fuming’ with the midfielder’s performance in that game, but it is Pogba’s ‘incessant boisterous behaviour, crazy hairstyles, dance moves, elaborate handshake routines and excessive social media presence’ that is beginning to grate.

The player ‘sits at the back of the upper deck of the team bus making a racket while Mourinho and his coaching staff mutter among themselves down below’.

‘Senior players’ have also ‘distanced themselves from him’. Anthony Martial, Marouane Fellaini and Joel Pereira are his only remaining allies, with Romelu Lukaku, Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford more ‘conscious of’ Mourinho’s ‘disapproval’.

A source told the Mail: ‘Paul would say stuff like, “Praise be to God”. Zlatan would mimic him by holding out his arms and saying, “You’ll need more than God to help you!” The players laughed but the thought was he needed to do more for himself.’

That same source adds that Pogba has been ‘acting like a petulant child,’ and that Mourinho ‘is getting p***ed off with it.’