The 23-year-old midfielder is widely expected to leave the Turin side this summer, but a move is not as close to materialising as recent speculation suggests.
Manchester United have not held talks with Juventus regarding the transfer of Paul Pogba, according to BBC.
Speculation surrounding the France international’s future has been prevalent since the end of the season, though an exit from the Turin side is not imminent.
The 23-year-old, who is gearing up for Sunday’s Euro 2016 final with Les Bleus, has won four successive Serie A titles with Juventus since arriving at the club for free from Manchester United in 2012.
And although a deal worth £100 million in transfer fees has been muted, a summer move to Old Trafford, or preferred destination Real Madrid, is unlikely to be concluded shortly.
The Premier League television deal, the contract with Adidas, the ugly commercial reality of football at the top level in England is such that the old numbers don’t matter any more. People scoff at the idea of a club spending £30 million on Troy Deeney, but he scored or assisted 20 Premier League goals last season, almost certainly enough to help keep a team in the top flight. And staying in the top flight is a financial prize worth fighting for, so teams will spend a fortune trying to do so.
The Ronaldo metric, or even the more recent Gareth Bale metric, neither of these have nearly as much relevance now as they did a couple of seasons ago. Everything has changed. €120m is the new €60m, or something like that anyway.
We’ve had a bad few years. We all know the story, but Moysey and Van Gaal have done their damage and joining United now is a legitimate career risk for a top player. For Pogba, joining Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich is obviously a much lower-risk move, in terms of the trophies he is likely to amass. Let alone United not being in the Champions League this season—an obvious and immediate sacrifice—there is also the fact that no-one knows whether Mourinho will turn things around.
So, basically, this means we cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with Madrid just by fluttering our eyelashes more appealingly at Pogba. Blowing them out of the race by being prepared to offer a ridiculous fee is entirely sensible.
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