Prime
100m pounds for French midfielder Pogba unwise
Man Utd’s Pogba move is a statement of intent but £100m is far too much. AFP photo
What you need to know:
BIG SPENDERS. The suitors for Frenchman Pogba are rather silent. Real Madrid, PSG and Man City have all been quiet thus leaving Man Utd in the fray alone.
First of all, let us agree that no footballer is worth 100m pounds. Yet that is the purported minimum asking price for anyone interested in making use of Paul Pogba’s services.
Unsurprisingly the suitors are not many. Real Madrid, who can usually be relied upon to spend colossal sums on vanity purchases seem to be rather silent these days. So too are the rich Arabs of PSG and Manchester City, whose new manager gives of the impression he has never rated Pogba.
That leaves Manchester United as the only other club, smug with their merchandise billions and stupid enough to sanction a move whose net loss is at least 100m pounds, seeing they let him go for free, in 2012.
Regardless of what happened all those years ago, however, let us for a minute assume that this time Pogba is being pursued as a matter of good investment.
That he has the technique and physic to thrive in the Premiership and for many years to come too, owing to his tender age.
The next logical consideration would then be, at 100m pounds, does he represent value for money? Many in the red half of Manchester will argue that Pogba is a thoroughbred. That for a man of his height, he possesses astounding technique and has the versatility to thrive anywhere in midfield.
But regardless of what Pogba’s agent would have us believe, are those attributes so much in short supply that obscene amounts must be invested in a single player? Would he, for lack of a better measure, command even the slightest claim to membership in the exclusive club of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo?
Isn’t that money better spent on two prospects unhindered by hype and whose failure would not represent the kind of disaster that record fee purchases inevitably have to carry on their shoulders? Doesn’t a combination of say Dimitri Payet and Mamadou Sissokho represent better value and lesser risk?
It is a huge burden to place upon the shoulders of a single person, this nonsense of world record fees and best young player. Some people handle it well, and thrive on it like Ronaldo, while others shrivel under the weight of expectation. And going by the evidence availed at Euro 2016, I am inclined to believe Pogba is in the latter category.
Of course I would like to think that Manchester United have considered all these questions. But because they are still intent on seeing this monster deal through, I am also convinced that their continued pursuit of Pogba is nothing more than a fix to feed the addiction of marquee signings. It does not help either that it is preceded by a period of particularly disastrous transfer business.
Oh and for the record Pogba cannot be said to be a shining example of photogenic quality.
So if there is a mismatch in simple valuation and his ‘marketability’ can’t be used as collateral, where then is the true value in this 100m pound transfer?
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