Brian Glanville

THE VOICE OF FOOTBALL

Restless Pogba highlights United’s problem with money

Manchester United’s highly talented and hugely expensive Paul Pogba is demanding release from a club which paid £89million to make him their record signing.

With his agent loudly proclaiming his client’s desire to leave, there were doubts whether Pogba would be on the plane taking the team to start its pre-season tour in Australia, but in the event, he did turn up and flew with the squad.

Pogba wants to leave Old Trafford to join Real Madrid. Having spent such a vast sum on the player, you can imagine how reluctant United and their manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, are to lose him. And as their present valuation has swelled to a huge £160m, neither Madrid nor Juventus are remotely close to a deal on those terms.

As a club, Manchester United have been overtaken by their rivals City and losing a player of this magnitude would put them even further behind. Pogba’s gloomy expression when he arrived with the squad at Manchester Airport spoke louder than words.

United, as a shrewd and penetrating column by the critic Jim White, expounds, face the continuing regime of the Glazers, who know plenty about money but much less about football,

White writes damningly of the chief executive, Ed Woodward, as “presiding over an archaic backroom structure that understands one thing and one thing only: making money”. Thus, as he points out, the squad is sent off on a demanding tour rather than implementing preseason early training.

This is in sharp contrast with the resplendent days of Alex Ferguson, who didn’t take his men on pre-season tour until they had had enough time to replenish themselves in calibrated training at home.