The Rebound: Paul Scholes passes world leader test with ease

The former United playmaker has come under fire for his recent criticism of Paul Pogba, but he's not taking the stick lying down...

In an effort to refute super-agent Mino Raiola’s claim that he ‘’wouldn’t recognise a leader if he was in front of Sir Winston Churchill’, former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes has successfully named nine out of ten historical world leaders in a Facebook quiz this morning.

Scholes, a two-time Champions League winner, drew the ire of Raiola because of his outspoken comments about Paul Pogba’s performance in United’s loss to Brighton on Sunday.

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The Red Devils lost 3-2, with many of their high-profile players failing to perform and Scholes’s reaction on BT Sport was characteristically blunt.

“There’s a lack of leaders in the team,” he said. “That’s why we thought Paul Pogba might be the ideal candidate to be that leader but he wasn’t there tonight.”

Raiola, who earned a reported £41m from Pogba’s then-record transfer from Juventus to United, showed just why he commands such a fee when he dropped two devastating tweets on Tuesday morning in defence of his client.

But it was the Churchill one that especially rankled United legend.

“I woke up this morning and my phone was bleeping and buzzing like mad and was thinking ‘what’ve I done now?’ When I saw what he’d said I thought, ‘I’m not having that, I know my history,’ so I looked [the quiz] up when I was still in bed.”

Speaking to Paddy Power News, Scholes, 43, exclusively revealed how he easily handled the first few questions, but they got harder as the test progressed.

“It was one of those picture ones. I get to watch a lot of documentaries and quiz shows now that I’m retired and I fancied my chances,” he said.

He was right to be confident, going six-for-six with over two minutes remaining.

“Mandela, Gandhi, Napoleon, I got all of them easy. They threw in a few more obscure ones too; Genghis Khan, Slobodan Milosevic, fellas like that.”

“I really thought I was set for ten out of ten but then they wanted the guy in Venezuela now, not Chaves, the one after him, and my mind went blank. It was still early, I’d just woken up.”

But Scholes isn’t too down about it all.

“Look, nine from ten isn’t bad.”

“It said that 77% of people score worse on it, and that I could get an IQ test report for just a quarter of the real price if I wanted it. Might order that and send it to Mino too.”

“I’ve got the screenshot of the leaders quiz anyway for him. That should shut him up.”

The Rebound is Paddy Power’s weekly breaking news story that may not actually have happened or be real in any way.

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