No, I think anyone in their right mind would be cautious about spending this much on any player tbh. Particularly given how our last massive transfer worked out. But then I and others were a bit cautious about the amount we paid for Ronaldo, a player who had been actively looking to get out of Sporting for a year and who we only got cos we outbid Arsenal. Similarly Rooney will all his Everton loving chat then out the door under a cloud and libelling Moyes as he went. Obviously Pogba is different because of his history with the club, but it's rare to find a big money high profile transfer with no baggage behind them or reasons for concern. And rarer still to find any transfer you don't have to be at least somewhat cautious about. But ultimately we have the money to spend, and if we are going to buy another CM I would rather we actually spent the money on a player who has the potential to substantially improve the team. Rather than revert to our usual strategy when a player is too expensive, and settle for a nice, safe, cheaper option. Like Fellaini, Kagawa or Bebe...
You've missed the point. I'm actually suspicious of his attitude, not his ability. He, at 18, decided he shouldn't have to wait for his chance to play in United's first team and ****ed off on a free. I'm not exactly bouncing at getting that back.
Maybe he knew he was good enough to play and wanted to go and play? Either way it's clearly done him good!
That was actually the point I was making about Ronaldo and Rooney. Both decided they were too big for their then clubs and left without so much as a backward glance, and with a substantial "**** you" in the case of Rooney. To me that raised a risk of the same type of attitude issues which brought down Wright-Phillips and others, but they turned out to be committed professionals in the end (CR more so obviously). And in fairness to Pogba he was given the option of sitting on the bench for Utd and getting a first team contract at Juve. Not entirely surprising to me that he chose the latter, particularly given SAF's comments a year before that "if we don't play Pogba he will leave", followed by long periods of playing Gibson, Rafael and Fabio in CM ahead of Pogba.
Hindsight vision is always 20-20. The fact of the matter is that we made a bad call letting Pogba go. But in the end, you can't always get it right. He's done great since he left but who knows how it would have turned out had he stayed. It doesn't always mean he would have become the player he is today. Either way, we have to get past what happened then and deal with today without referencing that we left him to for free. As for the transfer fee; I don't that it would be £100m if RM have indeed pulled out of the race to sign him. Just a quick note about RM being the pinnacle as referenced by Treble earlier, I don't buy it. Dumb players fall for it but in reality, it is disastrous for most of them. Even Beckham still classes his time at United to be the best. And if we really wanted Bale or Ronaldo, we did have a chance of snatching them away from RM. You just have to have a man of Woodward's ambitions and you can get them all.
Can't say I remember that about Ronaldo before we signed him but that's an aside really. Maybe Ferguson didn't think he was ready for United's first team. The truth is, Pogba chose to leave rather than prove him wrong, which I've always thought had a touch of the Billy big bollocks to me. The big issue was Fergie picking Rafael and Park against Blackburn in a match we lost at home but even so, he was 18. At that time he didn't really have a 'right' to play in the first team and was still very raw.
He got on the field for the first team 7 times, I saw about 5 of them and he looked way out of his depth each time. Had he made the same kind of impression as the latest crop have he may have been given a promise of more game time for the next season. Going to Juve was probably good for him as the game is slower over there and he would have had more time to settle.
No arguments there. But personally I think we've been lacking a bit of that in recent years - players who have that sort of arrogance and swagger to their play and believe they are just that good. Same thing we used to have from Ronaldo and Rooney. Ronaldo still shows the negative side of it at times, with his crocodile tears and comments about Iceland, but the positive side outweighs it. And ultimately leaving Utd did prove SAF wrong, as Pogba went straight into the Juve first team and hasn't looked back. Ultimately it was a choice of promised first team footie from Juve against vague promises with no real opportunities at Utd. So I find it hard to see Pogba being willing to move club, and risking being a flop at Juve, as a big negative against him.
We'll not know till he signs or not. Just a hunch of mine. I didn't like his attitude when he left and not much has changed for me. Mourinho would be crucial of course.
I thought he'd storm the final tbh. Seems very quiet, when Sissoko's showed you up you know you've had a bad night Watch him score now!
Fair comment. He did, and still does, look like a bit of an arrogant twat on the field. Maybe that's why I like him so much - an arrogant Frenchman with attitude problems in a Utd shirt sounds like a great idea to me But as you say, his attitude will be an uncertain factor which will only be resolved if he signs
This is a bigger worry imo - he's struggling to break down a stubborn Portuguese defence and being marginalised as a result. Could be an issue, as breaking down defences was one of our biggest issues last season.
