JOIN USPogba form a concern for United
Manchester United's Champions League trip to Sevilla on Wednesday night is the type of occasion for which the English giants swallowed their pride to pay USD 125 million for Paul Pogba, four years after he left Old Trafford for Juventus as a free agent.
Yet, it remains to be seen whether the French midfielder even starts at the Sanchez Pizjuan for the first leg of the last-16 tie as much due to his form as his fitness.
Pogba hasn't completed 90 minutes in a month as he has been hauled off by Jose Mourinho in defeats at Tottenham and Newcastle, and dropped by the Portuguese for victory over Huddersfield at Old Trafford in between.
Reports in the French press emerged last week that Pogba is unhappy with the role given to him by Mourinho, in particular the defensive demands imposed by the Portuguese.
Mourinho pointedly said Pogba would have occupied his favoured role on the left of a midfield three for Saturday's fifth-round FA Cup win at Huddersfield if he had not been ruled out hours before the game due to illness.
The arrival of Alexis Sanchez on the left side of the United attack in January has exacerbated those differences as Pogba and the Chilean are yet to complete 90 minutes together.
Mourinho described rumours of a breakdown in communication between him and Pogba as "big lies", but has not hid his criticism of the 24-year-old's form.
"In this moment he is not playing well... and the team needs him at a good level."
No more so than in the next few weeks as in between their two legs against Sevilla, United also host Chelsea and Liverpool in the Premier League with all three sides locked in a battle to finish in the top four.
"When he is not playing at a good level the team is not as good as the team can be," added Mourinho.
"I think it happens with every team when the best players, the most crucial players, for some reason are not performing."
For the hundreds of millions spent by United in the transfer market in recent seasons, Pogba remains the most marquee of them all having beat off competition from around Europe to make him then the most expensive player in the world in 2016.
The question remains whether Mourinho, who extended his contract in January to 2020, and Pogba can reconcile their differences for the common good.
In high spirits
War refugees Shakhtar Donetsk head into their Champions League clash with Italian side AS Roma in high spirits despite a lack of signings and sparse match practice.
The war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists has forced Shakhtar to play their home games far from their state-of-the-art Donbass Arena stadium for the past four years.
In 2014, the club moved to Lviv, close to Ukraine's western border with Poland, but the local crowd -- that favours their own top-flight side, Karpaty -- was often openly hostile to the Donetsk team or ignored their games all together.
Last year Shakhtar's owners decided to switch their "home" venue to the eastern city of Kharkiv, 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of their native Donetsk.
Shakhtar, the only club from the eastern Europe in the Champions League knockout stage, will host Roma at the 40,000-seat Metalist Kharkiv stadium.
The Ukraine conflict has caused Shakhtar's billionaire owner Rinat Akhmetov to lose control of dozens of his coal mining and metallurgical enterprises located in the eastern rebel-held territories.
That has seriously lightened the tycoon's wallet, hampering the signing of new players and forcing the club's bosses to focus on retaining their existing foreign players and fusing them with young homegrown talent.
Shakhtar's Portuguese manager Paulo Fonseca, who replaced Romanian Mircea Lucescu at the helm in 2016, said he was pleased to avoid "such great clubs as Barcelona and PSG" in the last 16.
Fonseca warned however that the back-in-form Serie A side would be a tough proposition.
"We are aware that the opponents are worthy and it won't be easy," he told the club's website. "This is a perfectly organised team that copes wonderfully with the tasks it is set."