Jose Mourinho dropped Paul Pogba against Huddersfield as a punishment, suggests Gary Neville

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Bengaluru, February 5: Football pundit Gary Neville has suggested Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho delivered a strong message to the team and its star player Paul Pogba by benching the French international in United's last match against Huddersfield Town.

United were awful in their midweek encounter against Tottenham, where underperforming Pogba came under heavy scrutiny in the 0-2 defeat.

Numbers - vs Tottenham, vs Huddersfield

And as per former Manchester United defender Neville, Mourinho decided to drop Pogba in the very next match as a stern warning that no player is immune from being axed from the squad and the United record signing needs to step up his game a little bit more.

"They are a far better team with him in it, but maybe Jose thought he needs a bit of a lesson and he needs to show him that he’s looking at the other night and he’s showing the dressing room," Neville told Sky Sports.

"This could be a message to the dressing room saying 'I’m leaving out our most expensive player, I’m taking him out of the team because I need to show there’s a consequence of what they did on Wednesday night'.

"Sometimes managers have to show they are in control and that they haven’t got their favourites. It would seem that Pogba and Romelu Lukaku always play, irrespective of how well they play.

"Maybe he’s just thinking that after the other night, this is a good opportunity to send a message to the rest of the dressing room.

"Scott McTominay came in and maybe that’s another message to the rest of the club. They were poor against Spurs and he needed to send a message that it wasn’t good enough."

However, Mourinho rubbished the suggestion and claimed that he did not bench Pogba as a punishment.

"I changed a few players. It wasn’t to punish anyone. If it was about punishing I would be punished too because we are a team," Mourinho said. "Pogba is a fantastic player. One of most talented in the world. To sit on the bench one day is not the worst thing in the world."

Against Huddersfield, Pogba came on in the 65th minute and gave an improved performance. United were back to winning ways, thanks to goals from Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez against Huddersfield. They are 13 points behind leaders Manchester City at the second spot.