Former Manchester United defender, Paul Parker, has launched in to a lazy attack on Paul Pogba today, as the queue to have a dig at our midfielder grows. He rightly points out that Kevin De Bruyne is better than Pogba, which is hardly breaking news.

De Bruyne, who is two years older than Pogba and has played 60 more games in England, is a favourite to be named Player of the Year this season. There’s no denying that the City player is currently better than our midfielder.

Yet Parker suggests that Pogba’s unique haircuts are part of the problem.

The difference between Pogba and De Bruyne could end up a nineteen point gap by Saturday night. We’re talking about potential up against class. There are good players but to become a great player you have to do it consistently week in and week out and that’s what de Bruyne does.

Can Pogba become the player he wants to be? He can but his priority has got to be his football – that should stick out more than his hair. It’s fine to have all the haircuts and emojis and whatever but to earn all that go and do your talking on the pitch week in, week out.

Everybody knows he can do it because everybody saw him at Juventus. He was fantastic in that style of play and the players around him helped him.

So he needs help and his first priority when he’s asked what he wants to be and replies that he wants to be the best player in this team is to say ‘well forget your hairdresser for a while’. Just go out there and become a player first then you can do what you want with your hair because people won’t notice anyway because they’ll only see the player.

De Bruyne doesn’t do anything with his hair and he doesn’t have an emoji: he’s playing football and when you talk about the best five players in the world you’ll mention Messi, Ronaldo, Salah and De Bruyne. When you mention Pogba people will have a little bit of a laugh then talk about his hair and the problems he has with Mourinho. That’s not really what he should be known for when you cost £89m.

Imagine believing that Pogba’s haircuts have any impact on the way he plays. Imagine believing that Pogba isn’t focussed on his football because he takes a trip to the barber. Imagine that a footballer has to ‘earn the right’ to cut his hair as he pleases based on the way he performs. Parker, you’ve gone mad. The desperation from people to find any reason to have a pop at Pogba is crazy and to suggest that he has to be the best player in the world before he can cut his hair as he likes is nuts.