Jose Mourinho 'Pissed Off' with 'Child' Paul Pogba; United 'Want' £140M

Manchester United superstar Paul Pogba has been behaving like a "petulant child" of late and is said to be on bad terms with manager Jose Mourinho. Their falling-out has been compared to that of Sir Alex Ferguson and David Beckham. 

The club will nevertheless look to profit if they sell the player and are said to be seeking up to £140 million if he leaves this summer, as Chris Wheeler and Simon Jones of the Daily Mail provided quotes from a club source:

"He's been acting like a petulant child. Jose can't be doing with someone who is always seeking the spotlight and not focusing on their football. You can see he's getting pissed off with it.

"There are definitely similarities with Beckham and Sir Alex in the clash of egos and the manager being unhappy with all the other stuff. Jose would sell him, but the club won't allow it."

Tensions between the parties are high, as Pogba has enjoyed man-of-the-match displays against Manchester City and Bournemouth either side of a dismal showing in the 1-0 defeat to West Bromwich Albion.

It was Beckham's growing stature as a public figure that fuelled tensions with then-United manager Ferguson prior to leaving the club in 2003. Pogba has courted criticism for being active off the pitch but not producing as hoped on it, although football writer Sam Pilger suggested that is wide of the mark:

United legend Paul Scholes appeared on BT Sport during the win at Bournemouth on Wednesday and said he thought Pogba could be sold this summer, having been one of those at the club when Beckham departed: "I think he could. From the outside looking in, it looks like the relationship isn't great."

Wheeler and Jones reported Pogba's valuation sits at between £120 million and £140 million, a great deal more than the £89 million the Red Devils paid to re-sign him from Juventus in 2016.

Scholes also described Pogba's poor performance against West Brom—the defeat that guaranteed rivals City the Premier League title—as "disrespectful," a sentiment Mourinho didn't agree with, per Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News:

Pogba was substituted at the Vitality Stadium and returned to the dugout to sit with his manager after some prompting and what appeared to be an urge to ignore those commands.

The relationship between the two looks fractious, although Statman Dave pointed to evidence that suggests some criticism of the player is undeserved:

Ferguson said in his 2013 autobiography that Beckham's celebrity lifestyle caused a change in his work ethic and led the player to believe he was "bigger" than the manager, per the Telegraph's Ben Rumsby.

Those are some of the risks that come with making a star the most expensive player in football history, as Pogba was for a short time, and it seems familiar cracks are emerging at Old Trafford—this time between the French midfielder and Mourinho.