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Football

05th Jun 2018

France Football poll shows 73% of fans want Paul Pogba dropped for World Cup

The French magazine surveyed 7,000 France supporters

Wayne Farry

They aren’t convinced by the Manchester United midfielder

Pressure is mounting on France national team manager Didier Deschamps after a France Football poll revealed that the majority of France fans believe Paul Pogba should be dropped from the country’s starting line up.

The poll, conducted by the French magazine and website, found that 73 per cent of supporters don’t think the 25-year-old warrants a place in Deschamps’ starting line up after a series of underwhelming warm up game performances.

Pogba has faced increased scrutiny from his country’s fans in the build up to this summer’s tournament, and was booed during his country’s 3-1 victory over Italy last week, a performance which saw him awarded 4/10 and 3.5/10 by L’Equipe and Le Parisien.

The poll reportedly surveyed 7,000 fans of the team, who go into this year’s tournament as 7/1 fourth favourites to win behind Spain, Germany and favourites Brazil.

Far from shy away from the criticism, Pogba chose to face it head on in a recent interview with France Football, saying that his critics are pointing out meaningless aspects of his game to criticise.

“You’re not going to criticise Messi when he walks on the park,” said the former Juventus man.

“If he scores three goals are you going to say: ‘Ah, but he’s walking on the pitch?’ No. You can’t tell me how to play.

“If I’m here today, it’s as I am. No one has told me how I must behave. That’s my football, that’s all.

“People can like it or not. Do I need this to be loved? Do I need people to judge me differently? Or do they talk better about me?”