Paul Pogba’s Manchester United career has, so far, not lived up to the, albeit, astronomical expectations we all had back in 2016. On the eve of José Mourinho’s first season as United boss we were all sold a dream. The confident, controversial and charismatic renegade that was José Mourinho, who had been the latest victim of Chelsea’s dreaded revolving door of managers defecting over to our side; then we had the return of the prodigal son, the boy, who had left for the development of his own career and was now returning a man – for a then-world record fee mind. Not to mention the signing of Zlatan Ibrahimović on a free transfer as well.
United’s apparent resurgence combined with Pep Guardiola’s arrival across town had the city in a frenzy, it was being billed as the clash of the titans. And after both sides won their opening three fixtures, clash they did.
Everyone knows how that game ended though, with a defeat for Mourinho’s men. Our only goal coming from a Claudio Bravo mistake and in many ways that one game perfectly incapsulates the Manchester United-Manchester City rivalry in recent years. City being the far superior outfit and United only really getting close due to a City mishap. Only when they are misfiring are we ever close.
Our approach down the years has prioritised style over substance and online engagement over on-pitch end product. And Paul Pogba, arguably, epitomises the whole debacle. An immensely gifted Footballer, who on his day could light up any stadium in the world but the Old Trafford faithful haven’t seen those gifts enough.
His recent performances for France don’t disprove any theories of his inadequacy but, in my opinion, confirm fears over his incongruence. He’s been here five years and for each and every one of those years it seems we’ve been mulling over an additional midfielder to “unlock” his potential, so we can finally see the best of him.
We tried to make Pogba the first pillar of new foundations that would lift United back to former glories and he made a promising start with League Cup and Europa League success in his first season but after the much-built-up Mourinho second season title charge crumbled before it even started and the FA Cup Final embarrassment, things quickly began to go south.
Rumours circulated shortly after the Cup Final disappointment about Pogba’s desire to leave and after another turbulent season, which saw the end of José Mourinho and the arrival of Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Pogba wanted away once again. He said, in the summer of 2019, that “it could be a good time to have a new challenge somewhere else.”
Somehow after that and several other slightly more subtle transfer pleas Paul Pogba is still a Manchester United player.
But for how much longer?
Recent reports suggest United are in for young French international Eduardo Camavinga, which would cast further doubts surrounding Pogba’s future as he enters the final year of his contract with no sign of him extending.
Pogba has cut a frustrating figure both on and off the pitch down the years; from his oscillating form to his agent’s ruthless candour in the press you can’t help but feel United fans have never truly taken to Pogba and given his enigmatic status at the club, I’m not sure they ever will.
We are again at a crossroads with him this summer. The player has one year on his contract left and can leave for free next summer and the club are even reportedly willing to risk he does leave – for a second time – on a free. But where does he go? Who buys him if he is to go this summer?
In the dystopian reality of the post-Covid transfer market, members of the European aristocracy don’t have £500m to spend every summer, so Paul Pogba might not be able to escape the Manchester rain and Mino Raiola might not be able to buy his fourth holiday home with his commission this summer.
So what happens then?
Other than tenuous links to Paris Saint-Germain, Paul Pogba has no realistic suitors this summer. Juventus have no money; Barcelona are dodging the bailiffs still and handing out collection tins at La Masia to fund Messi’s new contract and Florentino Pérez is still mourning Football’s untimely death in wake of the Super League collapse.
Everyone’s skint and he has nowhere to go.
Unless Raiola does engineer a miraculous move to Paris then Paul Pogba will have to stay and maybe even fight for his place. With the prospect of Camavinga joining and Donny van de Beek still here and Solskjær potentially not wanting to build his team around a player soon to leave, perhaps Pogba will have his work cut out getting into the first XI.
And perhaps – hear me out – Pogba not being in the XI would be for the best. As I said earlier we tried to build a team around Pogba back in 2016, with Romelu Lukaku and Antoine Griezmann supposed to be coming the following summer. But Paul Pogba was and is not the man you build your team around.
Take José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola for example. Mourinho’s two greatest achievements in Football were with two relatively unfancied sides in the grand schemes of things (Porto and Inter Milan). He was able to do this because he made average players look good and good players look great. Pep Guardiola on the hand is still yet to taste European glory without the services of Lionel Messi and that’s because Pep Guardiola needs the very best players in each position for his tactics to work.
In the very simplest terms, Guardiola makes already very good players look great and already great players even better. You couldn’t put Guardiola in charge of Oldham Athletic and expect him to secure back-to-back promotions and start winning FA Cups. Mourinho probably couldn’t do that either but the effect he has on a squad would be more beneficial to that level of players.
I would compare the difference between Mourinho and Guardiola to the difference between Pogba and Bruno Fernandes. Fernandes came into a hopeless United team and immediately raised their level and carried them to third place and continued that form into last season. Pogba had been at United for three-and-a-half years and up until that point hadn’t managed to have the impact that Bruno had managed in half a season. That’s because Pogba is the icing you put on the top of the cake to finish it off; the last player you buy in a project to slot in amongst an array of already world class players – like there is for France. Pogba is a luxury player in the same way Guardiola is a luxury manager.
Bruno, on the other hand, is Mourinho, he IS the cake. He is the man you build a team around because he does everything. He presses from the front, he scores, he assists and he sets the standard for those around him. And even though he plays in the quintessential luxury player position, he isn’t one.
Bruno is the player we needed to start the rebuild in the same way Mourinho was the man to manage the rebuild, before the hapless David Moyes and the mad Louis van Gaal had the chance to bog it down.
Irrespective of that though, Pogba may have painted himself and United into a corner with his sporadic outbursts of derision via his agent. It seems, with United’s growing ambition in the transfer market, that they might be the best place for Pogba in the end anyway, especially considering the near-destitute status of some of the aforementioned European clubs. But when his agent comes out and says things like, “Paul at Manchester United is unhappy, he is no longer able to express himself as he would like and as expected of him. He has to change teams; he has to change the air.” You can’t help but wonder if he has burnt his bridges with United, if not more importantly, United fans.
The most likely turn of events, if recent reports are to be believed, seems to be that Pogba doesn’t extend, plays out the remainder of his contract and goes somewhere else on a free. Setting aside the obvious embarrassment it would be from a business perspective to allow a once-world record fee achieving player to leave for free for a second time; you have to ask if keeping Pogba for another year is worth it anyway.
If Pogba still wants to leave, surely, if somebody can stump up the money, we should let him leave and start moving towards a more balanced midfield, who don’t resemble square pegs forced into round holes.
For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, we are building a team that plays with an effective playstyle that can get the best of the players and a clear and coherent plan in the market to recruit the players that fit said playstyle.
I would argue that Paul Pogba is one of the last remnants of a bygone era at United and should be one of the final casualties of Solskjær’s rebuild. After all, we are arriving at a crossroads in Solskjær’s career at Manchester United too. Ole has had much longer than Moyes had; he’s had half-a-season longer than van Gaal got and with the end of last season, he’s been here for approximately the same amount of time Mourinho was before getting the boot.
The point being, he is already at about par for the course for a modern Manchester United manger’s tenure before the club decide to either stick or twist. And after the penalty shoot-out heartbreak in Gdańsk, the upcoming season needs to end with some silverware, otherwise many people will start to question whether he is the man to take us back to the top.
So is it wise, with so much at stake, to hedge your bets on a player, who’s heart can’t really be fully in it? Is it wise to keep rolling the dice with Pogba hoping you get a six, whilst he’s looking elsewhere? Is it wise to build so much of your team around a player that will likely be gone come next year?
Only time will tell.
We’ve been in perpetual rebuild for coming onto a decade now and I’d like to think Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Manchester United is different to its predecessors and Ole has left the indecision and incompetence in the past, but as I said, only time will tell.
We have an important decision to make this summer regarding Paul Pogba, you know by now, if you’ve read this far, what my thoughts are.
Let’s just hope we make the right one.