By "A relationship between a relentlessly successful but cantankerous A-list manager and the fitfully brilliant World Cup-winning midfielder who should be his team's creative heartbeat, I think, is like a shark," Woody Allen very nearly said in Annie Hall. "It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."
The shark of José Mourinho and Paul Pogba's relationship appeared to have been given a new lease on life after a summer of politicking between the two, but after the intensely uncomfortable clip of the pair arguing during a training session - Mourinho chuntering without looking at Pogba, as if he's delivering a soliloquy, Pogba dumbstruck and horrified, Michael Carrick just getting out of there ASAP - that shark carked it. It's gone. It's been carved up and turned into soup, vitamin supplements and luxury watch straps.
Despite the fact that Mourinho has since accepted Pogba's explanation for the source of the beef - a knockabout Instagram post the manager had thought Pogba posted after Tuesday's loss to Derby but which was actually filmed during it and delayed by a lack of 4G - this feels seismic.
The Telegraph reports that Pogba's absolutely dead set on forcing that move to Barcelona which failed to materialise in the summer, while most commentators see this, along with Mourinho declaring that Pogba will never captain United again, as the end of the line in spite of Mourinho insisting there is "no fallout at all, no problem at all, just a decision that I don't have to explain."
But where did it all start? Pogba was Mourinho's world-record marquee signing in that first, sun-kissed summer of 2016 and for a while, Pogba's patchy performances excepted, everything was rosy. The first sign of real trouble was when Mourinho benched Pogba for the two Champions League games against Sevilla in March as United stunk the place out and deservedly exited.
An air of unresolved tension remained, and Pogba's impressive form for Didier Deschamps' France at the World Cup only enflamed Mourinho's jealousy. Mourinho criticised Pogba's concentration levels, and suggested that far from needing to change his own approach to get the best from Pogba, the issue was "about [Pogba] giving the best he has to give".
"The World Cup is the perfect habitat for a player like him to give [his] best," Mourinho said. "It's closed for a month. He can only think about football." Unimpressed, Pogba had his agent Mino Raiola try to airlift him out of Old Trafford but to no avail. Things got even worse when after the Leicester game, Pogba told a reporter that, "if you are not happy, you cannot give your best" before deciding not to say anymore in case he was fined.
Mourinho managed to dismiss that, but he couldn't dismiss Pogba's call to "attack, attack, attack" after the Wolves draw last weekend. Then came the stripping of the vice-captaincy and the training video, the footballing equivalent of a seething kitchen table argument about loading the dishwasher properly which was never really about loading the dishwasher properly.
The two are stuck in this cohabitation for a few more months at the very least, and maybe they'll come to a resolution. At the moment, though, this shark is very, very dead.
