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Manchester United will sign a midfielder in summer but to replace Michael Carrick - not Paul Pogba, says Jose Mourinho

The United manager has denied reports of a falling out with Pogba and confirms there is no plan to replace him this summer despite looking for a new midfield signing

Timothy Abraham

Friday 16 February 2018 18:51 GMT

Paul Pogba will not be sold in the summer by Manchester United, manager Jose Mourinho has stressed (Getty)

Jose Mourinho revealed Manchester United will be in the market for another central midfielder in the summer but as a replacement for Michael Carrick not Paul Pogba.

The United manager spent the majority of his press conference ahead of his side’s FA Cup fifth-round tie with Huddersfield Town angrily responding to questions over Pogba’s future at the club amid speculation of a rift between him and the player.

French publication L’Equipe claimed Pogba, who rejoined United from Juventus for £89.3m in August 2016, had been unhappy a more defensive role in the team and perceived his future away from Old Trafford.

The players Mourinho has fallen out with

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1/14The players Mourinho has fallen out with

The players Mourinho has fallen out with

The players Jose Mourinho has fallen out with

Mourinho's treatment of the young full-back Luke Shaw has made headlines, with the manager angrily accusing the 21-year-old of not applying himself in training, before hinting he could farm the player out on loan. But Shaw is far from the first player Mourinho has spectacularly fallen out with...

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Vitor Baia

The former Portugal goalkeeper started and ended a glittering career at Porto, having also spent two years at Barcelona. But Baia did not have it all his own way during his second spell, losing his first-team place and suspended for disciplinary reasons in Mourinho's maiden season as boss following a reported training ground row with his compatriot. Baia remained at the club until he retired in 2007, three years after Mourinho left for his first stint at Chelsea.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Ricardo Quaresma

Quaresma was meant to be Inter's star player under Mourinho, but the manager grew impatient with his ill-discipline and resorted to critiquing him in the press, which didn't go down well with the player. “My biggest regret was joining Inter," Quaresma later said. "I felt on the margins of the squad and woke up crying when I had to attend training sessions."

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

David Suazo

Mourinho failed to give David Suazo much of a chance when he took over at Inter in 2008 and criticised him in the press before farming him out on loan to Benfica. “Mourinho is arrogant and selfish, and likes to assert his dominance,” Suazo later told the Honduran publication, Diez.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Romelu Lukaku

"The thinking behind the move was the fact that Romelu was always very clear with us, in his mentality, in his approach, he was not highly motivated to come to a competitive situation at Chelsea," Mourinho said after allowing Lukaku to leave Chelsea for Everton in 2014, for £28m. The striker has recently been linked with a summer move to Mourinho's United, for £65m.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Kevin de Bruyne

The Belgian infamously revealed that he gave up on his Chelsea career after Mourinho had embarrassed him in front of his team-mates. “He called in all the attacking midfielders,” said De Bruyne of his final weeks in west London. “He showed us the stats of his six players - assists, goals, passing percentage, key passes, dribbles. He wanted to prove I didn't perform on the level of the others. I simply answered him: ‘Sorry, that's not logical. I've played less games than the others. How can you compare me to the others?’ That was just not fair in my eyes.”

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Juan Mata

Mata became a fans' favourite at Stamford Bridge after arriving at Chelsea from Valencia in 2011. However, the Spaniard struggled to adapt to Mourinho's style of play during his second spell in charge of the Blues and was sold to Manchester United in 2014. Mata and Mourinho were later reunited at Old Trafford and the former has now become an important player for his manager in Manchester.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Iker Casillas

The Madrid legend was one of the first players Mourinho fell out with after joining the club in 2010. Mourinho was disgusted that Casillas regularly spoke to Barcelona players and was said to be suspicious of his girlfriend, who worked as a journalist. “Mourinho saw him as a grass, a mole, a traitor and an egoist,” Diego Torres wrote in his biography, 'The Special One'.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Sergio Ramos

Current Real captain Ramos was a key player during Mourinho's three year stay in Madrid, although the pair were far from friends. Ramos went public with his dismay at Mourinho's treatment of Mesut Özil and insisted in a 2014 interview that he had forgotten who Mourinho was.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Pepe

The pair frequently bickered during Mourinho's time at Real, although like Ramos, Pepe remained a key part of Madrid's starting XI. Pepe accused Mourinho's treatment of his friend Casillas as being "not adequate". Mourinho replied: "It is easy to analyse the Pepe thing. His problem has a name, and it is Raphael Varane," suggesting that Pepe wasan inferior player to the emerging 20 year old.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Pedro Leon

Similar to Luke Shaw, Pedro Leon was a young player inherited by Mourinho whom he almost immediately dismissed. The Guardian's Sid Lowe reported that "Mourinho told Leon that even if the team plane crashed without him on it and he was the only man available, he still would not play the following week." Leon accused Mourinho of workplace bullying before being sold to Getafe.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

David Luiz

Mourinho sold Luiz upon his return to Chelsea and insisted that the defender "would not be missed". The pair have regularly traded jibes since and Luiz perhaps got the last laugh when Chelsea resigned him in 2016, under Antonio Conte.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Bastian Schweinsteiger

Frustrated with Schweinsteiger's habit of flying back to Germany when injured, Mourinho banished the veteran midfielder to training with the reserves. However, in a possible sign that he had mellowed, Mourinho later admitted to feeling regret over his handling of the player. "After knowing him as a person and a professional and the way he was respecting my decisions as a manager, yes I regret [it] and there is no problem for me to admit it, because I have told him," he said after selling the midfielder to the Chicago Fire.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Luke Shaw

Mourinho's rant on Shaw's lack of effort in recent months was one of his most explosive yet. “It is difficult for him to be on the bench,” Mourinho said. “I cannot compare him with Ashley Young, with Matteo Darmian, with Daley Blind. I cannot compare the way he trains, the way he commits, the focus, the ambition. I cannot compare. He is a long way behind.”

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Pogba has struggled for form in recent weeks and Mourinho substituted the 24-year-old in two of United’s last three matches.

Mourinho hit back at what believes are “lies” and “bulls***” regarding the France international before he later talked about his desire to strengthen the position in the next transfer window.

Carrick, 36, will retire at the end of the season and take up a role on United’s coaching staff.

“We need to sign a midfield player,” Mourinho said. “Because we are going to lose Michael Carrick. Of course, we need balance in the team.

“Some of you [the media] keep saying that we are going to buy that striker, that winger, that left winger, that right winger.

“You can accuse me of many things, but you cannot say that I lied to you. When I don’t want to say things, I don’t say (them). But I don’t take you in other directions.

“We are looking and we are going to try to sign a midfield player.”

Carrick has talked up 21-year-old Scott McTominay as a potential replacement for him, and Mourinho insisted he is aware of the academy graduate’s ability having utilised him in 12 games this season.

“Scott McTominay didn’t arrive here from the moon,” added the Portuguese. “Before he came to the first-team he trained with us many times last season.

Scott McTominay has been ready to step up for United for a long time, says Mourinho (Getty)

“He came to us in pre-season and then we realised that with Andreas Pereira going to Valencia, we decided not to buy another player because we had Scott McTominay ready to step up.

“If, for you, promotion is that they train regularly with us, they have been promoted for a long time.

“The objective of having a squad that is not so big is exactly to be open for this.

“This week, for example, we didn’t have a few players with injuries and small things we wanted to protect and didn’t train with the team and made individual training, the kids trained with us on Thursday and before that.”

United face a crunch period of matches after the clash against Huddersfield including a two-legged Champions League tie against Sevilla and Premier League games with top four rivals Chelsea and Liverpool.

Although Mourinho insisted United will not treat the competition lightly.

“Let’s go step by step. The next one is the one that, on Saturday at 7.30pm, we are out of the FA Cup or we are in the quarter-final draw,” he said.

“It is black or white. It’s not grey. That is really important because it’s a knockout match. We are going to face the game in the best possible way.

“Sevilla is half of a knock-out, so not so crucial as Huddersfield, but almost.

Mourinho will not treat the FA Cup lightly (Getty)

“We are going to try, we are going to try. The Champions League is more difficult than the Europa League, we all know that.

“And the FA Cup in this moment, I believe all the top teams, I think only Liverpool and Arsenal are out. A nice draw for Chelsea, for Man City, for Tottenham,

“Top teams are going to be in the quarter-final. Let’s make sure we are there too, but even the FA Cup will be tough.”

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