- Manchester United face Sevilla in the Champions League last 16 on Wednesday
- United boss Jose Mourinho confirmed Paul Pogba is set for a return to action
- Pogba missed last weekend’s FA Cup clash with Huddersfield due to illness
Jose Mourinho has confirmed that Paul Pogba is set to return to action for Manchester United against Sevilla on Wednesday night, but is reluctant to put too much pressure on his under-performing star.
Pogba missed last weekend’s FA Cup win at Huddersfield through illness having been dropped to the bench and substituted twice in the previous three games.
United’s £89million record signing is set to return for the last-16 tie in Spain under pressure to raise his game after Mourinho admitted that he has not been playing well enough.
Jose Mourinho confirmed Paul Pogba is set to return to action against Sevilla on Wednesday
But United boss was quick to add it would be unfair to place too much expectation on Pogba
But after flying into Seville on Tuesday, the United boss says it would be unfair to place too much expectation on Pogba.
He said: ‘I don’t think it’s fair to speak about the responsibilities of a player. I don’t even like the fact that the player that cost X millions doesn’t have the same responsibility as the player that cost three times X.
‘The responsibility is for everyone so I don’t like that approach. I understand for you but not for me. The same way when I decide a team to play, I don’t look to the age, the salary, the transfer fee, because that’s not also fair.’
Pogba missed last weekend’s FA Cup clash but returned to training just 24 hours later
Mourinho had tailored final training session at Carrington to discover who was match fit
Asked if Pogba was ready to face Sevilla after returning to training just 24 hours after declaring himself too ill to play at Huddersfield, Mourinho explained that he had tailored the final training session at Carrington to discover who was match fit.
He added: ‘I opened the training session today and I opened in a period where we normally don’t open. We normally do it in the warming-up and in the first simple drills of the training session, and this time we did it for quite a long time, and in the last period so you could see the players in a competitive situation.
‘When a player is in that situation it’s because the players are normally ready and without problems, so you could see that in training some people that didn’t play against Huddersfield with problems, like Pogba, (Antonio) Valencia, (Marcus) Rashford and (Ander) Herrera, so I think in an objective way you could look at it.
