Timothy Fosu-Mensah: Former United star defends Paul Pogba

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·2 June 2026

Timothy Fosu-Mensah: Former United star defends Paul Pogba

Former Manchester United defender Timothy Fosu-Mensah has spoken out in support of one of his former teammates.

United career

The Dutch defender joined Manchester United’s academy in 2014 and made his debut in the 2016 season.

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Fosu-Mensah played in a number of positions across the defence and midfield for Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho.

His most productive season came under Jose Mourinho in 2016-2017, when he played 11 times for the senior side.

He could never really find a place in the first eleven, and he was sold to Bayer Leverkusen.

Fosu-Mensah was hampered by numerous recurrent injuries and left the club in 2024. He is still a free agent.

Paul Pogba

In a wide-ranging interview with Sky Sports, Fosu-Mensah gave his thoughts on Manchester United’s most expensive ever signing, Paul Pogba.

The defender admitted that Pogba was a player whom he had looked up to even before sharing a pitch with him.

He explained, “Paul [Pogba] is definitely up there because before I came to United and I was at Ajax, I was a centre-back but also a defensive midfielder and Paul was already doing well in Juventus so I was big fan of him already.”

The Dutch international continued, “if you ask me who the player I looked up to, people would expect you to say maybe Maldini, Ronaldinho – these are great players but for me I’ve seen Paul and what he was doing at Juventus – I think at maybe 19 or 20, I was a fan of him because he was different.”

Fosu-Mensah explained that you can only really appreciate Pogba as a player when you “see him up close” and that you could pass to him in any situation and he would always “own the ball.”

He elaborated by stating, “he is so skilful, left-foot or right-foot, technically he is great and maybe he doesn’t get his flowers now but he will definitely get them later.”