Arsenal: Leave It To Wenger To Make Paul Pogba Look Good

Arsenal did not come out with intentions on winning and that allowed one man to finally look the part he was meant to play – Paul Pogba.

There has been this little side story this year that has made the ups and downs more manageable – Paul Pogba has been a load of dung. And it’s been amazing and I’ve loved every minute of it. Having Arsenal make him continue down that road was going to feel amazing.

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But we didn’t. Instead, Arsenal came out and framed Paul Pogba and made him look like he was worth the money United paid.

Since I’m on a roll with pointing at Wenger, let me go ahead and do that again. I can’t help but think that Wenger’s obscene awe of Pogba helped the 23 year old midfield have the time of his live dominating the game.

It all started with Coquelin and Elneny. This was a clearly passive midfield that had only one real threat to stop – Paul Pogba. The reverence that this already gives to Pogba is completely unwarranted because now two of our players are concerned with stopping one of theirs while they should be focused on figuring out a way to link up the defense and the offense.

Not only was it foolish to waste the manpower on Pogba, but it failed. Pogba made Coquelin look like a rag doll and he made Elneny look like a middleschooler.

Everyone wanted to see the clash of Granit Xhaka and Paul Pogba. It was the talk of the Pain in the Arsenal town. The two big signings up against one another.

Whether it was fear or, again, this bizarre sense of respect, Wenger robbed us of that pleasure and instead sent out his other two options.

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Xhaka is bigger, smarter, and more athletic than Elneny and he is far more tactically inclined than Coquelin. He could have, at the very least, troubled Pogba in the smallest. I’d wager that he would have even done more than that.

But we didn’t get to see that. We got to see our pathetic midfield run around Pogba while never truly getting in his way.

I have been asking so many questions that I myself can’t answer, so let’s have another. Did Wenger actually expect Elneny and Coquelin to stop Pogba?

I’ll admit, I was guilty of thinking that Coquelin could lock him down and I was wrong. But I do think in other circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Instead of allowing Pogba to come at us with the ball, keep the ball from him and do some attacking of our own.

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That seems like a novel idea. Why didn’t we do that?

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