Paul Pogba’s Consummate Display at the Heart of Juventus’ Win over Chievo

As Juventus took on Chievo this weekend, they were blessed to have a number of players deliver excellent performances. From Paulo Dybala and Alvaro Morata in attack through the midfield influence of Sami Khedira and Claudio Marchisio, it was a superb team display that led to the comprehensive 4-0 victory.

The defence went practically untested throughout, but every other department of Massimiliano Allegri’s team functioned perfectly, with the coach once again able to rest and rotate his squad in order to cope with a congested fixture list.

Making no fewer than five changes to the side which won their Coppa Italia semi-final clash with Inter Milan at a canter, it was one of the men who featured in that first leg who was arguably the team’s most influential player against Chievo.

From the opening minute, Paul Pogba played with an energy and determination that had been missing in recent weeks, looking much sharper at the Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi and repeatedly opening up the Veronese side.

Indeed, their overwhelmed opponents had no answer to Juventus in general, but Pogba ran riot in the middle of the pitch, breaking up attacks before launching the Bianconeri on their way with his incredible blend of pace, power and technical ability.

Chievo simply could not cope with the 22-year-old, and—even just looking at the raw statistics—his contribution to the win was staggering.

The graphic in the tweet below showcases the breadth of Pogba’s performance, and breaking it down into various categories highlights just how complete a display he turned in.

He grabbed the headlines with a goal and an assist, but he also connected with 62 of his 70 pass attempts (88.6 percent), which is 15 successful passes more than his usual average, according to WhoScored.com.

As can been seen below after some great work from Stephan Lichtsteiner, Pogba’s awareness to find the on-rushing Alex Sandro for Juve’s third goal was excellent, knowing the Brazilian was arriving and managing to get him the ball despite close attention.

Also completing four of the six take-ons he tried, the Chievo defence was often left chasing shadows, quite the contrast to Pogba’s own defensive effort. Over the course of the game, the aforementioned graphic shows he won three tackles, two aerial duels while making one interception and 10 ball recoveries.

Again that is a markedly improved contribution to the one he normally makes, with figures from WhoScored showing Pogba is averaging just 1.8 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game thus far in 2015/16.

In an unsurprising piece of analysis, Allegri asked for even more from the France international and others, telling reporters at his post-match press conference that they could have won by an even wider margin.

“There’s room for improvement both on an individual and collective level, whether physically or mentally,” the Juve boss said. “Pogba’s final effort on goal is a case in point, when he struck the crossbar by hitting the ball too hard. Instead, he might have opted to place his shot to better effect.”

That effort can be seen above and, despite now having added six goals and seven assists in all competitions, it must be noted that Pogba took no fewer than nine shots against Chievo, per WhoScored.

It is an area of his game he can certainly put more effort into in the coming weeks, but the frightening thing for opponents is that Pogba is almost certain to do so, after discussing the club’s work ethic in an interview with La Stampa last month.

“People ought to know that it is not easy at Juve,” the Frenchman said (h/t Football Italia). “There is a culture of work that is different to anything else abroad.”

Whether that is true or not, the presence of talents such as Pogba means his team are certainly a different class to their domestic opponents, as he proved against Chievo.

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