Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has chosen to remain coy over a potential agreement for Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba.
Juventus superstar Paul Pogba has been grabbing the headlines for a number of weeks, and it finally seems that his transfer saga is coming to an end. It was reported on Wednesday that Manchester United had agreed a mammoth world-record fee of £100 million with Juventus for the 22-year-old. Speaking about the possible transfer, Red Devils’ boss Jose Mourinho refused to make comments about any deal taking place.
According to the Guardian, Mourinho said:
“I don’t confirm and I don’t deny. I cannot tell. First of all because I don’t think it’s correct to speak about players from other clubs. He’s a Juventus player, not a Manchester United player. The only thing I can say is that my board, my directors, did a fantastic job to do 75% of the job I asked them to do.”
United’s interest in bringing ‘the one that got away’ back to Old Trafford is justified, given the Frenchman’s showings ever since he left Manchester. Since his departure in 2012, Pogba’s grown leaps and bounds, not only in popularity, but also with regard to his overall domination of the midfield. He is a player whose strengths could be of much use to United, and he would also easily fit into the “specialist” category Mourinho is interested in bringing to the club.
However, Mourinho was quick to point out that the Juve man wasn’t his only transfer target but was a part of a three-man shortlist. He backed United’s Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and the club owners, and believed that they could fulfill his demands at Old Trafford.
“We know the profile of the player we want, we have three faces who fit the profile,” Mourinho said. “I am really confident Mr Woodward and the owners can get the profile of the player I think the squad needs.”
The other names rumoured to be linked with a move to Manchester United are Pogba’s French teammate Blaise Matuidi and Chelsea player Nemanja Matic. Both are similar types of players and are being targeted to bring in defensive stability, whereas Pogba’s influence would be much more diversified than that. The 22-year-old would not be the ideal box-to-box midfielder that is every manager’s dream, but his phenomenal ball control and his ability to make things happen for players around him is the reason a staggering world-record fee has been agreed for him. After a shaky Euro 2016 campaign, Pogba would be looking to go all guns blazing come the 2016/17 season, and could be wearing the red of Manchester come the 1st of September.
