Tuesday, 20 September 2016

Is Paul Pogba Manchester United’s Messiah or Another Waste of Money Like Juan Sebastian Veron?

We’re only five games into the new Premier League campaign but for some that’s more than enough time to ascertain that the Premier League title race is destined to involve one solitary horse and that the most expensive signing in the history of the game was a total waste of money.
 
Can anything that costs €100 million ever be considered value for money? Paul Pogba was always going to be up against it from the moment Ed Woodward and Jose Mourinho sanctioned the purchase of the France international for a world record fee.

True, Pogba’s early performances have hinted that United might have another Juan Sebastian Veron scenario on their hands – class player, wrong league, wrong system – but it is far too early to be writing the 23-year-old off.
Jose Mourinho’s midfield options are varied and plentiful and it was always fanciful to expect a coach, even one as talented as him, to find the perfect formula from the get go.
Paul Pogba is not Manchester United’s messiah; he’s a very overpriced boy.

This is a deal that sits outside the realms of reason, logic and good taste. Splashing a €110 million transfer fee for a player who isn’t a matchwinner like Cristiano Ronaldo or Gareth Bale is absurd, as is Pogba’s desire to watch Juventus challenge for Champions League while he slugs away in the Europa League with Man Utd.

Make no mistake, Pogba is extremely talented. Graced with a poise and pizzazz that few midfielders on the planet are able to match, the 23-year-old has grown into the beating heart of a Juventus side that dominate Italian football.

But is he worth €110 million? Does he deserve the tag of the most expensive player in history? Will Jose Mourinho play him in his ideal position? No, probably not, and definitely not.

Mourinho plays 4-2-3-1 and Pogba is expected to sit alongside a defensive midfielder behind the four attackers. That won’t suit Pogba, who is allowed to roam forwards in an attack-minded central midfield position for Juve.

Pogba didn’t perform as well for France this summer in a more restrictive role and yet the suits with more money than sense at Old Trafford have decreed that he’ll fit into an overrated manager’s outdated system without difficulty. 

And let’s also be clear about something: Serie A is very different to the Premier League. Pogba was a big fish in a small pond in Italy, where Juventus reign supreme and the style of football is distinctly different.

In stark contrast, Man Utd couldn’t make the top four last season and will be relying on two over-the-hill strikers (Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney), a promising but inconsistent forward (Anthony Martial), and a teenager with tons of talent but very limited experience (Marcus Rashford) to fire them to glory in 2016-17. Pogba’s got magical feet but he’s not Houdini.

Fifteen years ago, Man Utd broke the English football transfer record by spending £28.1 million on Serie A midfield star Juan Sebastian Veron. The Argentine was expected to be a superstar but couldn’t adapt to the pace of the Premier League and, though Sir Alex Ferguson branded Veron’s critics “f*cking idiots” during his two-year spell at Old Trafford, he is widely considered one of the biggest flops in the club’s history. 
 
A decade later, Fergie was the “f*cking idiot” for disillusioning Pogba and it’s cost Man Utd a nine-figure sum to buy him back. And like Veron’s transfer 15 years ago, this is likely to be another case of a talented midfielder burdened with a huge transfer fee not fitting a belligerent Man Utd manager’s masterplan.
 
It’s tempting not to, but we should probably afford United’s new manager and his most expensive summer signing more than five games before penning their obituaries.

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