Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
POGBA’S FREE FOR ALL AGAIN
Star can walk for nothing in January as Raiola leaves Old Trafford chiefs red faced
PAUL POGBA is just six days away from being free to escape Manchester United for nothing – for the second time in a decade.
The France midfielder can sign a pre-contract agreement with interested clubs from New Year’s Day as his deal with United enters its final six months.
And although United are unwilling to confirm their fears officially, inside the corridors of power at Old Trafford there is now an acceptance that the £89million man will not be at the club next season.
There will be no shortage of takers for the 28-year-old. He has a lifelong dream of wearing the all-white kit of Real Madrid – and boyhood hero Zinedine Zidane was desperate to take him to the Bernabeu when he was in charge of the Spanish club.
Juventus, the club who took Pogba off United for a nominal training fee in 2012 when he refused Sir Alex Ferguson’s offer of a new contract, would like to fleece the
Reds a second time after banking £89.3m from his Manchester return.
Paris Saint-Germain are also certain to be in the frame given Pogba’s status as a mainstay of the country’s World Cupwinning team – and the French club’s willingness to splash the cash would mean a hefty signing-on fee and the £500,000-a-week wages that agent Mino Raiola will demand for a player who is in the peak years of his career.
United’s owners have been outflanked by Raiola at every turn. Ferguson accused Pogba and his adviser of a “lack of respect” when the Frenchman moved for the first time to
Italy. But the Scot’s handling of the midfielder was itself shoddy. He promised to give Pogba first-team opportunities when he entered the final year of his contract in the summer of 2011.
Pogba only made three substitute appearances in the League Cup before Christmas. And by the time he made his Premier League debut in January, by once again coming off the bench against Stoke, his mind had been made up by Ferguson’s decision to ask Paul Scholes to come out of retirement.
All seven of Pogba’s appearances that season were as a sub – and when Juventus offered him the chance to operate alongside Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal in Turin, his bags were packed.
Pogba, currently sidelined by a thigh injury that will keep him out until
next month, won four titles in his four seasons with Juve. If Ferguson and David Gill had still been at the club when Raiola was brokering Pogba’s departure from Italy in 2016, it’s unlikely that there would have been an Old
Trafford return.
But with Jose Mourinho arriving as the antidote to Pep Guardiola’s appointment at Manchester
City, it was seen as a coup when United outbid their rivals to land the midfielder again.
It soon became apparent that United should have been careful with what they had wished for. Pogba’s relationship with Mourinho became so strained that Raiola began touting him around Europe after just one season.
Guardiola even revealed that he had rejected the chance to take him to the Etihad. When Mourinho paid the price for failing to challenge Guardiola, it was left to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to pick up the pieces. Despite flashes of quality, Pogba has never reproduced the form he showed at Juventus and continues to display for France. Even so, United’s owners have feared for the last three years that their hopes of protecting their investment by securing the midfielder on a new contract were doomed.
Last year, they were forced to trigger a 12-month extension to keep Pogba at the club this season.
Raiola insists that after rejecting one offer of a new contract, the club have not bothered to re-open talks.
Now interim United boss Ralf Rangnick ( far left) will be faced with the task of how he can persuade Pogba to put in the hard yards his high-octane pressing style demands.
It could be that a parting of the ways in the summer will suit both parties.