Read between the lines, Mourinho
War of attrition with Pogba will prove to be the undoing of United's embattled 'head coach'
Trench warfare is the only pattern of behaviour that Jose Mourinho seems to understand.
When others exercise diplomacy, Manchester United's manager prefers to fling dynamite.
He knows the power that words, or a lack of them, can inflict. So, too, does Paul Pogba.
United captains, even stand-in ones, treading a fine line is by no means uncharted territory.
Roy Keane's attack on all and sundry was considered so explosive by the club's in-house TV channel that it spelled the end for both an eight-year spell as skipper and his Old Trafford career.
Yet it was what Pogba felt he could not say rather than what was actually uttered in the aftermath of the Red Devils' opening English Premier League win over Leicester City on Saturday morning (Singapore time).
Mourinho invariably goes public with personal gripes, usually naming and shaming his main irritants in the process, and occasionally skirting around issues.
Sometimes the best way to successfully address the elephant in the room is to not make any direct references to it.
Clearly Pogba has learnt a thing or two from his time under the Special One. By avoiding mentioning Mourinho, the France international is allowing people to read between the lines.
A rarity of soundbites only served to amplify the significance of his hinting at potential recriminations for speaking his mind about an apparent unhappiness.
In turn, it has thrown his manager at the mercy of public opinion, knowing that there is only one outcome.
Perhaps that is why the World Cup winner felt so emboldened to make a power-play at a time when there remains the potential for him to still be cut loose from his current employers.
There is unlikely to be a shortage of takers for Pogba, despite an underwhelming two years back in the EPL, on the back of a triumphant display for his country in Russia this summer.
Barcelona's interest in him is well-documented and will remain in the foreground until the European transfer window closes in 17 days, and potentially beyond that also.
An Old Trafford board with a penchant for star names will resist any and all attempts by the Catalans, and others, to prise him away.
Were push to come to shove, Mourinho would be the one sacrificed first, ahead of their £89 million (S$156.3m) record signing.
Veiled attacks on executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward over a lack of activity in the transfer market have further undermined his case.
No amount of gallery-playing comments about United's long-standing nemeses will be able to save him from the seemingly inevitable.
Perceived exit strategy tactics, including references to himself as a "head coach" rather than a manager, have placed him on a collision course with the hierarchy.
But it was the war of attrition with Pogba, started midway through last season, which will be his main undoing.
The Portuguese will never win a popularity contest against a midfielder whom United fans deem an exponent of their club's fabled "way" despite notoriously snubbing Sir Alex Ferguson in 2012, while Mourinho is considered the antithesis to that champagne-football ideology.
In Pogba, he may have finally met his match with a player who is not afraid to harness the power of the media in ways and means that no amount of press conferences can replicate.
For the first time in an incendiary coaching career, Mourinho may have to tread very carefully.
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