MANCHESTER UNITED CARETAKER manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer felt Paul Pogba was at his very best as he starred in yesterday’s 4-1 Premier League win over Bournemouth.
United coasted to a third straight triumph under Solskjaer, Marcus Rashford and Pogba inspiring the comfortable win with fine individual displays at Old Trafford.
Pogba scored twice to help build a 3-1 half-time lead, while he also set up Romelu Lukaku to score the home side’s fourth goal after the interval.
The performance highlighted just how much he has improved since Solskjaer replaced Jose Mourinho, with Pogba scoring four and providing three assists under the Norwegian.
“That today is a top, top performance for a midfielder, because it’s all-round,” Solskjaer told reporters in his post-match news conference.
“It’s work-rate, he’s dangerous in the box, he wins headers, wins tackles, and there’s no showboating. It’s touch, pass, move and he plays the efficient game.
“Paul knows he’s at his best when he plays that game and there was maybe one flick that he missed halfway through the second half that he could have done better with, but not a lot else he could have done.
“As I’ve said to all the players, we want to see the best out of them, we want to see them enjoy themselves and express themselves within the framework and how we want the team to play and all of them really performed up to the top standards.”
United have scored 12 goals in Solskjaer’s three games at the helm, and the former striker is happy to be entertaining fans with free-flowing, attack-minded football.
“They created some great chances today,” he said of his team. “Some fantastic attacking football at times, it’s pleasing. That’s what the fans, that’s what we want to see and I think the players are enjoying themselves.
“Bit by bit, just a little bit, every day we keep chipping away on little details, how we want to position ourselves, when we want to go forward, when we want to slow the game down, and quicken things up.
“The second half today I thought we managed brilliantly, because coming in at half-time at 3-1 rather than 3-0, you could have gone ‘let’s slow down or defend’, but I thought they really went about the job perfectly.”
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