Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has explained why he dropped record signing Paul Pogba for the match against Huddersfield while praising youngster Scott McTominay.
Jose Mourinho made a brave decision by dropping £100m Pogba for a youth academy prospect. But the decision paid off as Manchester United won 2-0 to Huddersfield.
Pogba had a dismal game last time out against Tottenham and was substituted for the first time at 63 minutes as United lost 2-0.
And Mourinho explained that it was McTominay’s ability to win the ball back was key to his decision and described McTominay’s ability as ‘genius’.
The Portuguese manager explained that the 21-year-old’s development at United has been ‘beautiful’.
He said: “I change a few players and the intention was not to punish anyone.
“But I made a few changes thinking about the characteristics of this game and I think this kid [McTominay] has a great desire to recover the ball when the team is not in possession, he’s a kid that chases the ball, that tries to recover high up the pitch and when he has the ball it is always simple and against opponents like Huddersfield, so close and with so many bodies behind the ball, the simplicity sometimes is genius.
Mourinho continued:”You don’t have space, you have to open spaces by playing simple, so was a decision to play the kid…I prefer to look at it in the beautiful way of a little kid that arrived here with his mum at nine-years-old for the first training session…”
Pogba came on at 64 minutes and managed to help the side to a 2-0 victory. But it was clearly McTominay’s time to shine after performing admirably in just his second ever league start.
Scott McTominay signed a new contract until 2021 at United last year.
