Jose Mourinho once told me that if you are unhappy with a player, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, you have to know their personality and what buttons to push.
"If it's John Terry, then I might get in his face, shout at him and tell him he's a [expletive]," he said to me and Gianluca Vialli when we were writing The Italian Job. "But if it's William Gallas, I can't do that. I will lose him if I do that. I might need to put my arm around him, be supportive, reach him in a different way."
In that sense, let's be clear, however you feel about Paul Pogba, the bust-up with Mourinho was stage-managed.
There is no "vice-captaincy" or "second captaincy" at Manchester United. The club captain is Antonio Valencia and in his absence Pogba has worn the armband. But so too have other players.
Mourinho knows the armband is just a piece of cloth: If you are not a leader, it will not turn you into one.
By taking away a second captaincy that doesn't actually exist, the only point made was that Pogba is unfit to lead.
The 2005 version of Mourinho would have been on board with that and might have said exactly the same thing. Except, you would imagine, he would have done it in private and to Pogba's face because that is not the way to motivate performance.
And what happened this week was a public humiliation. It was in front of Pogba's peers and teammates; when something like that happens in front of so many people, it is pretty much guaranteed to leak out.
The quote that "players were happy with the decision" offers a clear clue that the leak did not come from Pogba. It was designed to get out and have maximum resonance.
The following day only reinforced things when video emerged of a tense exchange between Mourinho and Pogba. Rights holders are allowed to film training once a month and they only get 15 minutes. Club press officers babysit the camera operators, so the coaching staff are fully aware when they turn up and when they leave.
You can even throw in the story, which by sheer coincidence appeared on Thursday, that Pogba marched into executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward's office just before the club's opening game of the season and told him he had agreed personal terms with Barcelona and wanted to leave.
To some, who believe Pogba is the root of all the club's problems, it is getting him out of the team so that United will flourish and win silverware this season.
Others think this is actually a complex psychological ploy, wherein Mourinho drags someone through the mud and then builds him up again, thereby winning his loyalty forever.
To others still - most ominously - it is the manager's attempt to get himself sacked. It might not be ideal, but a payoff of nearly $45m, plus two trophies to show for two full seasons despite a raft of spinnable excuses, from Pogba's presence to Woodward's transfer meddling and the dumpster fire of a squad he inherited from Louis van Gaal - heck, that's not so bad.
All three "victory" scenarios are somewhat far-fetched and you wonder if they are worth the negatives, the main one being the depreciation of Pogba's transfer value, which is exactly what happens when you call your club's priciest saleable asset unfit to be captain. That depreciation would only be compounded if Pogba turns into a bit player.
Perhaps this was a message to the entire squad - many of whom like Pogba - that they too can be thrown under the bus whenever the manager feels like it.
- espn.com..