,,£89million man Paul Pogba played for Manchester United in the Reds' first defeat of their USA pre-season tour, to Barcelona, and his manager José Mourinho claims he's at the same level as Barcelona's Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez.

Pogba belongs on same level as Messi

“Messi and Neymar, there is only one, there is not two," Mourinho said after the 1-0 loss. "Suarez, Iniesta, Pique, Ronaldo, Bale, Modric, Toni Kroos; there is only one, so they can only play for one club, not for two clubs,” the United boss continued, referring back to last weekend's fixture against Real Madrid.

"We can’t have them, they belong to their clubs. But I have to say, Paul Pogba showed the level, he showed he belongs on that level.”

“I always thought the problem is not what you pay for these kind of top players, I don’t think the problem is what you pay for Pogba, I don’t think the problem is going to pay crazy for Neymar.”

However, Mourinho does feel that some clubs fail to buy as they cannot meet the asking price for a player not worth that much.

Always room for improvement

Pogba, alongside Anthony Martial, had a chance to level the game in the second half but he was unable to seriously test goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen. Mourinho stated that it was important for the Reds to finally lose on their tour in the US to bring them back down to Earth.

“It’s very important to lose a match in pre-season," said the Portuguese.

"I think it would be very bad for us to leave the US without a defeat, playing against teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester City, it would be very bad to go home with just victories,” he told the press.

“I think in the game, we did some very good things and we did bad things. The very good things are to keep and the bad things are to improve.”

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Joshua Dawson
Sports Writer at VAVEL Twitter @JoshD122