Manchester United broke the record transfer fee when signing Paul Pogba from Juventus during the 2016 summer transfer window, and every United fan thought he’ll be United’s saviour, especially after winning the Carling Cup and the Europa League.
Come the 2017/2018 season, Paul Pogba fell out with Jose Mourinho, and it became apparent that only one of them was staying at United, and this is where United made a very huge mistake, giving Pogba the power over Mourinho.
Mourinho got sacked, and Paul still wants to leave the club, he said in an interview in 2019 that “ it could be a good time to have a new challenge”, which is utter nonsense, especially given that he is failing miserably at the current one.
His agent came out this week and said to Tuttosport: “I can say that it’s over for Paul Pogba at Manchester United”, if that’s not the ultimate disrespect to Manchester United, I don’t know what is. Yet some United fans who believe that their beloved star can do no wrong still want to find excuses for this guy and say that it’s just the agent talking and that it’s not Pogba’s fault, and that is utter rubbish.
Manchester United have a big but easy decision to make regarding Paul Pogba, should they keep him or just sell him?
Pogba was given some assurances before he accepted coming back to United, like improving the squad, competing on all fronts, building the team around him, and so on and so forth, and unfortunately, United failed to deliver. But Bruno Fernandes was brought in in a similar situation, and the impact he’s had on the squad is just unbelievable, Bruno Fernandes is basically what we thought Pogba would be.
The reality of the fact is, Paul Pogba doesn’t want to stay and was going to leave United at some point in his career, and if they try to keep him by offering him more money, or even worse, forcing him to stay, then it’ll be a real joke, holding on to him will only make the matter worse. Instead, Manchester United need to focus on other areas that definitely need to improve on.
50 million for Pogba should be justified because of his inconsistency and the fact that he’s become more and more of a problem. His interviews bashing United directly and Indirectly and the fact that people are still talking about where is his most ideal position for over 4 years.
Besides any higher than 50 million should a rip-off provided his current form because he’s not consistent he’s not going to give quality performances week on the week as he’s already 27 with only a couple of years left of his prime.
Manchester United with this transfer has a huge opportunity to become almost pioneers in how transfers are done going forward, with the normalisation of swap deals as clubs deal with the lost revenue due to Covid. If they accept a straight swap with Dybala (As Rumoured), this would represent a “win-win” for Manchester United and Juventus along with both players. Dybala in a normal market would cost around £75m. Not many clubs will pay that today due to the shortfall in cash.
However, acquiring a player of that value for Pogba is something which will show that United are beginning to understand the relationship aspect of transfers as opposed to just an exchange of money. Woodward evidently sees transfers and deals of any sort as a “zero-sum game” as evidenced by his taking £75m from Inter for Lukaku.
