He did, but it doesn't change the fact he was backup then and now is possibly most key player. It's a combination of him improving but mostly the quality of our midfield diminishing compared to before. It's undeniable.
Pogba+Marchisio today, is better then Pirlo+Pogba back then.
VIdal, is the current difference, as the overall quality of juventus grade vidal, is higher then any grade khedira
Pogba back then, was not remotely as good as he can be today in these huge games.
Pirlo back then was a boss, but when placed under that huge pressure, we struggled massively. Today we have an infinitly better defensive player in marchisio, who is also a top class player going forward, but not legend class like pirlo.
One of the key differences why we became good in europe, was having Marchisio and a more mature Pogba in the midfield, either in place of Pirlo, or additionally when we went 4cm last season.
Chelsea, Celtic, Bayern, were all good examples of how we could really struggle under major central pressing with Pirlo. We dont have that issue today.
What we did lost this game against bayern, was the calm to retain the ball when we are pressured and need to hold a result. But, what if we had marchisio on the bench for the second half, replace khedira with him ?
The only diminishing factor, is that we lost that aggressive Vidal pressure, who could position himself perfectly within the given tactic, press the world and beyond, but also provide instand threat when recovering or running towards the goal.
Today, if we could have 2016 Marchisio and Pogba, with 2013/2014 Vidal as the benchmark, yeah, we arent at that level today. Neither is vidal tho.