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LONDON. — Paul Pogba is beginning to look like the player Manchester United paid £89million for him to be.

The raking 50-yard passes. The lung-busting runs. The thunderous tackles and even more thunderous shots.

The world’s most expensive player has got it all. Now he just needs his moment.

The spotlight has been firmly focused on the Frenchman ever since his record return to Old Trafford last summer. And why wouldn’t it be?

He’s one of the game’s most recognisable players. He’s back at the world’s most recognisable football club. And he moved there for more money than anyone ever has.

This was always how it was going to be this season. And his critics were always going to hammer him for it.

If we’re honest it’s no surprise at all that he didn’t hit the ground running from the get go. He was never going to light up the English game immediately. It simply doesn’t work like that.

A 23-year-old, no matter how good a 23-year-old, remains a 23-year-old and was always going to take time to adapt.

But the fee, the club and the man dictated that that was the expectation from many. Pogba had put himself on a pedestal and there were 89 million reasons for them to knock him off it.

Those critics, however, aren’t as vocal as they once were.

Pogba is, little by little, beginning to look more like Pogba now and is silencing them one by one, one performance after another.

He wasn’t the star of the show against Hull on Tuesday night — he didn’t need to be in truth — but the signs were there.

That world class range of passing was there as he ran the show in the middle of the field spraying balls around left, right and centre.

That man-against-boys physicality was there as he dominated the key battles and forced his and United’s will on their inferior foes.

That thinking-outside-the-box creativity was there as he posited and probed and posed questions of the Tigers’ backline throughout.

All that was missing was that goal, the like we saw so many times for Juventus, and he was only denied that by the width of a post after a sumptuous second-half free-kick.

But until he pieces all of that together in one 90 minutes and until that 90 minutes comes in the biggest moment then those doubters will linger.

Fortunately he has the perfect opportunity just around the corner – Liverpool.

Every player needs a signature game. Whether you’re Thierry Henry in Milan or Steven Gerrard in Istanbul, you need that one moment that everyone thinks of when they think of you.

United fans know that all too well too – memories of that Roy Keane on that night in Turin are still as fresh as they were on that famous evening in 1999.

Now, a match-winning performance at Old Trafford on Sunday wouldn’t equal that, of course.

But a statement game against the Red Devils’ most-hated rivals would silence even those most entrenched against him once and for all.

Pogba is nearly there. If he makes Sunday’s game his own he will finally have arrived back in the Premier League.

You can see it coming. Now is the time for Pogba to deliver. — The Mirror