Is Ruud Gullit More out of Time Than Paul Pogba Is out of Form?

Ruud Gullit's words will sting Paul Pogba. When the Dutchman looks back on a life well lived, he will likely place about as much significance on his punditry work as astronaut Buzz Aldrin will the Quaker Oats he advertises, but nonetheless, a blunt assessment from a Ballon d'Or winner is never a nice way to start a Sunday.

Relayed by the Sunday Mirror's Simon Mullock, it is a withering assessment Gullit gives of Pogba's second spell at Manchester United.

An unusually didactic tone sees the Dutchman compare him to the recently offloaded Memphis Depay, a winger who arrived from PSV Eindhoven driving a Rolls-Royce and left for Lyon on a pony—with not a single best-in-show rosette to show for his time in Manchester.

"Paul Pogba is going through the same thing at United as Memphis Depay," Gullit said. "He may be the most expensive player in the world, but that does not count if he is spending more time on his dress style, the colours in his hair and his social media."

Pogba recently came in for widespread criticism for launching his new clothing range, in collaboration with Adidas, the day after he had put in a shift against Liverpool that would have required Twitter to design a completely unique emoji to do it full justice. 

In an unfortunate turn of events, the finest minds in Silicon Valley had prior to the 1-1 draw at Old Trafford knocked up an emoji of Pogba's head—the first one ever of a Premier League footballer. 

On matchday, as though somehow trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare, everywhere Pogba went he was confronted by the image of his own face. On the scoreboard, on advertising boards and on the phone of every kid inside Old Trafford, a pixelated version of Pogba's mug stared back at him. No wonder he kept losing his bearings at corners. When he looked at Dejan Lovren, he probably saw himself grinning back.

The gripe is that his new clothing range is proving a distraction—though it seems unlikely fashion's new darling will have endured too many shifts in the stitching room. It's even less likely the emoji thing was his idea, even if his advisers might have foreseen a poor performance was always going to open up their client to ridicule.

In the gods, Sir Alex Ferguson was sat within spitting distance of David Beckham. The Englishman was perhaps the architect of the modern football world Pogba is at the epicentre of now. No player was aware of his own brand like Beckham, much to the chagrin of Ferguson and fellow traditionalists who continue to see the badge as the star of every football club, not those who are lent it.

It hardly requires an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game to draw parallels between Gullit and Pogba. Rare is it a footballer manages to be both rangy and elegant, but the pair of them could stride over a snow-clad field together wearing muddy boots and not leave a footprint. Both were blessed with touches sent from heaven, even if Pogba appears to be an atheist at times when not on his game.

Serie A proved the playground of their respective dreams, though they moved to Italy at vastly different stages in their careers. Gullit was on the cusp of greatness, Pogba barely more than a boy in a man's body.

AC Milan made Gullit the world's most expensive footballer in 1987 when Silvio Berlusconi paid PSV Eindhoven £6 million for a player Arsenal passed on when he was at Feyenoord, with then-manager Terry Neill loath to risk £300,000 on a "wild kid." Ipswich Town didn't fancy him either.

In 1987, he was crowned only the second black winner of the Ballon d'Or after Eusebio. Pogba's manager, Jose Mourinho, believes his player could break the Cristiano Ronaldo-Lionel Messi stranglehold on Europe's most feted (fetishised) individual prize.

Pogba wasn't wild when he pitched up at Juventus as a 19-year-old, but he was cocksure enough about his ability to have left Manchester United over a dispute regarding playing time/money, depending on who is telling the story. Some 29 years on from Gullit, he set a world record of his own when returning to Old Trafford for £92 million.

A player once described by George Best as being better than Diego Maradona tends to deliver verdicts wearing boxing gloves, as opposed to those of the kid variety. Gullit is neither shy nor retiring.

Back in 2008, I spent the best part of five days with him in Los Angeles as part of a small press trip. His sense of humour was drier than anticipated, and he was willing to reel off anecdotes with enthusiasm despite the fact they probably rolled their eyes before they rolled off his tongue. He also possessed a sarcastic streak that could leave teeth marks, if not quite break the skin. At the time for Sky Sports, I wrote: "The filter between his thought process and mouth is not one overly engaged."

Many will accuse his views on Pogba as demonstrating a similar lack of forethought. As a critique, it's based more on lifestyle than performances, which collectively have not been good enough to be exempt from criticism. To focus on the off-field stuff comes across a little pious, not to mention oddly timed.

Though inexplicably bad against Liverpool and no better than fine at Stoke City on Saturday, Pogba has otherwise been integral in United's 17-match unbeaten run.

Since adopting a midfield three similar to that which Pogba thrived in at Juventus, allowing him to push further forward to the left of Ander Herrera and Michael Carrick (watching the back door in the Andrea Pirlo role), there has been marked improvement for both player and United. He's been playing further up the pitch, having more touches in the opposition half, scoring more goals and setting up more chances.

For someone who seems to play the game off the cuff a lot of the time, with mixed results as he still has a rank tendency to be over-elaborate, he shows a studied self-awareness of the weaknesses in his makeup.

Of his style, he recently told L'Equipe (via Football Italia): "Every player has his own personality. I'm a player who tries a lot. If I get something wrong, I'll try again. Maybe Pirlo played a little simpler, whereas I play hard from the first minute to the last."

Paul Scholes would argue too hard.

Prior to getting the deal past the post, Pogba found an unlikely ally over the summer in Roy Keane, who unlike many ex-United players accepted the club was buying potential regardless of the price. One suspects the lackadaisical flicks would soon die a death if Keane were playing alongside him.

"He's still a young player, and he will mature over the next few years, and that's why, if he does go back to United, they're still buying that potential," Keane said on ITV, via Metro. "But he will be a top player for the next 10 years."

The majority of United regulars seem to agree he is a sound long-term investment for the club, though it's not a universal view. Given his status as the world's most expensive player, you would be hard pressed to find an advocate willing to declare him the world's best or even in the top five or six.

Those long since exasperated by a football culture that seemingly obsesses over every aspect of the game except the bit that actually involves the ball will applaud Gullit's candidness.

He added: "Paul should ask Memphis—and he will realise that being successful and reaching [the] top level in England is only possible if you perform every week and if you dedicate everything to your career.

"Memphis was heavily criticised because he found it more important to pimp his image than improve his football. He should have known that stuff on the pitch goes before anything.

"Pogba will also get the wrath of the fans. People will start to moan and have a go at him.

"Even for the biggest football stars in the world, there is a big rule: Playing well for your club comes first; don't let all the other stuff catch the limelight. That is my advice."

A blatant issue is the comparison with Depay. It reads as though Gullit is saying there's not much between them. Given Pogba won four Scudettos at Juventus by the age of 23 (eight trophies in total), which is one more title than Gullit managed at AC Milan, it seems a little churlish to suggest he might seek out advice from a player who has only ever played in the Eredivisie, however impressively, before failing in England.

Perhaps no modern-day player has the capacity to make those who have reached a retirement age in football terms seem old quite like Pogba.

I must confess to having been surprised he held a keen interest in meteorology when regularly referencing Stormzy, only to discover he was talking about the UK grime artist. We'd probably all have our initials shaved into our hair too were it not for the fear it may never grow back. As for dabbing, this writer will happily be lowered into the ground not being fully aware of what it entails. 

But that's fine. It seems genuinely mystifying why quite so many ex-professionals seem to take umbrage with what extracurricular activities Pogba gets up to. He seems an engaging, charismatic 23-year-old who enjoys being famous. Let him enjoy it. Surely it's better he revels in the spotlight than hides from it. As Oscar Wilde once said: "Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms."

There's no doubt he could be doing something more productive than having his hair cut every five minutes, but I'd hazard a guess there are Premier League footballers doing a lot worse things. If Pogba's biggest vice proves to be vanity, Mourinho will be delighted. 

Even Pep Guardiola from time to time must get bored of watching pre-prepared clips of forthcoming opposition. If Pogba spent his spare time in the bookies or the boozer, he'd probably get away with a nod and a wink job.

To be fair to Gullit, when he received his Ballon d'Or, he used the occasion to highlight the plight of Nelson Mandela. Not to mention his metamorphosis from the Iron Tulip to Captain Dread when on backing vocals for Dutch reggae band Revelation Time.

Amid criticism of how Pogba spends his downtime, it's probably worth recalling how in his days at United's academy, he forged one of the best midfield partnerships ever seen in youth football alongside Ravel Morrison. Rio Ferdinand told a story on BT Sport (h/t Richard Jolly of ESPNFC) of Ferguson calling him over to watch the "best player he had seen" for his age, while Gary Neville told Talksport (h/t Squawka) one was better than the other. They were both talking about Morrison.

However tortuously self-serving social media is, there are definitely worse things for young players to become immersed in. The playwright George Bernard Shaw was right when he said, "Youth is wasted on the young," but that shouldn't excuse miserable old sods lamenting the follies of their juniors, as though they never had any of their own.

It's telling Mourinho has not even hinted at dissatisfaction with how Pogba manages his lifestyle. On the contrary, a manager who is hardly averse to telling his star players exactly what he expects from them—if it's ever necessary he usually does it sat right next to them on the bench—has in the past month championed Pogba's chances of one day winning the Ballon d'Or and intimated he could be a United captain in the future. 

Back at Juventus, old warhorse Giorgio Chiellini, not a man prone to issuing hollow platitudes, has been lamenting the loss of a character he compares to NBA champion LeBron James and sprint king Usain Bolt. 

"We're not used to losing and, in addition to this, we've lost a player like Pogba who was the LeBron James of football and, even when you didn't notice him, he was impressive," Chiellini told Sky Sports Italia (h/t the Daily Mail's Matt Maltby). "Pogba was our Usain Bolt."

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has taken him under his wing at United and seems acutely aware that for all the bravado, often between the pair of them, there are probably times when Pogba needs a quiet word.

The Swede disputes the view Pogba was affected by having extra attention placed on him in the Liverpool match, arguing social media is now just a regular facet of the game like any other, per the Guardian's Jamie Jackson. 

"When I started to play football, there was no social media, none of these things. But it's part of the game now.

"What is too much, what is too little? We don't know. We just follow the game. We are professional, we train like always, try to do our best every game."

It should not come as any surprise the club's most expensive ever outlay is so switched on given Manchester United's commercial department indulge in social media activities with a reverence usually only espoused by religious zealots—worshipping at the temple of Twitter, as it were. A contract as lucrative as Pogba's is likely to include stipulations to "stay on brand."

Pogba is happy to play the game. His return to Old Trafford was accompanied by a #Pogback social media campaign that set the bar (or lowered it to an unprecedented low depending on your perspective) in terms of how new signings are played out in the media glare.

He arrived at the club's training ground to sign in a red-and-black Chevrolet, with the car manufacturer a major sponsor of the club. Of course it's a nonsense, but if people want to see the world's best players in England, the clubs need to find a way to pay them. 

It wasn't always the case.

The year was 2011. The journalist had barely got his question out about Twitter when Ferguson drew both hands to his face, before covering his eyes (watch the video, via the Telegraph here). It was as though he had been asked about Rafa Benitez or Arsene Wenger. To discuss something so vacuous seemed to almost physically pain him, with Wayne Rooney's online spat with Piers Morgan the subject of enquiry. Presumably they weren't debating women's rights.

Ferguson's response felt like it should have been shot in grainy black and white. He dismissed Twitter as he once did overly officious linesmen, labelling it a "waste of time" before encouraging people to "go to a library and read a book" instead. That last part drew laughter from those present, somewhat disconcertingly given the room was packed full of journalists.

It is a measure of the power Ferguson wielded at Manchester United that the club only embraced social media in the summer of 2013. Presumably he was still clearing out his desk at Old Trafford when the first official club tweet was sent. Twitter has outlived both David Moyes and Louis van Gaal at United, with the club ushering in a brave new world post-Ferguson with a fairly standard post.

It was never likely to better Rooney's first foray on to the social media platform, which remains one of the best tweets of all time. It may take longer for it to be topped than the 44 years it took for him to break Sir Bobby Charlton's scoring record.

It seems remarkable now in an era when executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward has secured almost as many commercial partners as Rooney has scored goals that one of the world's most iconic brands could be so behind the curve in being such late adopters.

They have made up in the intervening time since. With 71 million followers on Facebook and 11 million on Twitter, Manchester United boast a global reach that those charged with making the club money think is anything but a "waste of time." 

The game has changed. Paul Pogba and Co. are the new faces of it.