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.
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Pogba, now 23 years old, has since gone on to earn a very good reputation with Juventus, helping them achieve domestic dominance and the brink of European glory only to be foiled by Messi and co.
Manchester United have released their provisional 2016/17 squad numbers and, although it was believed that they would delay doing this until they completed the signing of Paul Pogba, they have left the number 6 shirt unassigned.
Manchester United arrived in China for their pre-season tour on Wednesday but executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward was not on the plane.
Real Madrid have been linked with rekindling their interest in Pogba, but the midfielder appears poised for a return to Old Trafford as Raiola has an agreement nailed down with the Red Devils. “You have smoke, you have fire – you used to say something like that, right?” “I can not tell. First of all because I don’t think it’s correct to speak about players from other clubs”.
This leaves Manchester United fans with a hard question, do we really want a player that refused Sir Alex Fergusons tutelage and demanded first team football at the tender age of 19?
“Apart from that we know other clubs are also involved and for us it is not kind of ‘are we going to win the race or to lose the race?’. You can not focus on one, so we are in a very comfortable situation”.
“My relationship with Mr Woodward is very good, it is very open”.
“I asked them for four profiles of players, I gave them a few options and they did for me 75% of the job and we just have 25% to do before 31 August”. I think it affects the intensity of the game, the pitch is also normally dry even if everybody makes an effort to make the best conditions and try to water before the game and half-time maybe. The market is already hard.
“My board doesn’t need that pressure to come from the manager”. We need a fourth player with a certain profile and we’re going to get it.
The Portuguese manager has made three signings so far this summer, bringing in defender Eric Bailly from Villarreal, midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Borussia Dortmund and striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Jose Mourinho has warned Juventus that haggling over the final details of Paul Pogba’s proposed move to Old Trafford could see Manchester United turn their attention to other targets.
“We are in great conditions to have a great market”.
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With two deals taken care of and another much bigger one seemingly imminent, one could be forgiven for assuming Raiola might sit back and count his money over the rest of the summer. I’ve spoken to him a couple of times, all the players have talked as well, we are going to be challenging for every title that we can go for this season.
