Ferdinand: Only Time Will Tell If Pogba Follows My Social Media Advice

Former Manchester United defender and current BT Sport pundit Rio Ferdinand has stated that it remains to be seen whether or not Paul Pogba will follow his social media advice.

Ferdinand was previously critical of Pogba and his teammate Jesse Lingard for posting a video of them dancing on social media whilst their team continued to struggle in the 6th position in the Premier League table.

However, the Englishman has now admitted that everyone also needs to take the changing roles of social media into consideration.

Rio recently talked to the media, and claimed (via Daily Mail): “Since those comments, and I have spoken to Paul about them, I’ve had time to think and we are in a different era now.

“I was doing stuff that Alan Mullery [a former Tottenham and England player] was probably going: ‘Oh my f****** God, what’s he doing?’ But times change. In a lot of ways, I like old school stuff in terms of my professionalism with football, but with the social media element I was over here [gestures] to everyone else at the beginning, so I understand it and what it means to the players to have a social media following and to be active on social media.

“My only issue was timing. Timing is key to everything about when you put stuff out and I’ve said that about Arsenal players and been vocal on Manchester United players. It’s about timing. But we have to accept we are in a different era.”

The decorated center-back also added that it remains to be seen whether Pogba will actually heed his advice.

“Paul, since knowing him as a kid, he is a strong guy, very confident in his ability,” Ferdinand continued. “I said it first when he came to United that was the difference between him and all the other kids of his age…

“He had an aura about him in terms of that he sensed he had the chance to be a top, top player and he wasn’t going to let that slip. He is someone you could beat down with all the sticks you wanted, but he would still do the same things all the time because he has that confidence, that certain amount of arrogance you need to be a top player.

“Did he see my point? I don’t know, maybe only time will tell. I think we will see that.”

 

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