PR spin doesn’t hide the Del Boy look of ‘Pogback’
So this summer he’s gone for broke. In Mourinho, he’s employed the most-successful, high-maintenance manager in the business. In Pogba, he’s bought the most-expensive player in the world.
He’s also recruited a superstar striker who scored 50 goals last season in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the Bundesliga Player of the Year in Henrikh Mkhitarayan.
Woodward has done the business early and decisively, just as Mourinho would have demanded.
It’s a marked contrast to the dithering that hallmarked Woodward’s recruitment efforts when David Moyes was manager.
It’s as if United have made a conscious effort this summer to start acting like people expect Manchester United to act.
As their American owners, the Glazers, might say, the motto has been: “Go big or go home”.
The average United first-teamer now costs £26m and has 50 caps.
Mourinho is working with a squad of 26 players and has two internationalists
for every position.
Apart from Marcus Rashford, now a fully- fledged England player, all the bright kids who were given chances by Louis van Gaal have been shunted to the side.
The club has given up any attempt to balance the books and have simply decided to buy their way back to the top.
In the four seasons since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, United have spent £466m and recouped just £124m, a net spend of £342m.
In Fergie’s last four years – mainly because he sold Ronaldo for £ 80m – United’s net spend was just £38m.
Of course, £ 800,000 of the club’s income during that period was the compensation that Juventus paid for a 19- year- old midfield player who the manager felt had ideas above his station.
Ferguson accused Pogba of disrespecting United, saying: “It’s disappointing. I don’t think he showed us any respect at all, to be honest”.
The cost of bringing the player back
means that it’s now portrayed as Ferguson’s most-expensive mistake.
It may be a sign of his declining influence that the club has ignored any potential embarrassment to their most-successful manager to re- sign the Frenchman.
But the spotlight on Pogba, who was his country’s Poster Boy at the Euros before wilting when the chips were down, will be merciless.
His £290,000-a-week salary puts him in Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez territory – but without the goal threat to win matches on his own.
The fee – artificially elevated because of the premium Premier League clubs pay since the new TV deal kicked in – is potentially more of a millstone than it might normally be, given that United already had him then gave him away.
Pogba’s job is simple. He must prove he’s the game-changer for United.
He must become the man who puts them back to where they believe they belong.
No pressure, then.