There can be no doubts now that Paul Pogba is looking to move on from Manchester United this summer with his agent, Mino Raiola, confirming that he is looking for a new club for his client on Friday night.
“Everyone knows the willingness of Paul to move on, everyone within the club from the manager to the owner knows Paul’s wishes. We are in the process of that. Everyone knows what the feelings of Paul are.” Raiola told the Times.
Paul Pogba is expected to force a move from Manchester United after Raiola went public on Friday night to declare he is engineering a transfer away. Pogba is expected to join Real Madrid, but there have also been links to Juventus this summer.
Pogba still has 2 years left on this current contract after spending 3 years after returning to Old Trafford for £89million from Juventus. Manchester United have insisted that they were not looking to sell their influential central midfielder, but now that Raiola come in by claiming the whole club know the 26-year-old wants to depart this summer the story might just change.
United will be in a relatively strong position to lay down some significant demands due to Pogab’s commercial value, a figure of £150m has been thrown around by various media outlets. With such a high cost it is expected that any club looking to bring the French World Cup Winner would involve a player swap to try and drive down the price.
Madrid will be desperate to offload a long term United Gareth Bale, which you would expect to be part of any deal as United would look to bring a superstar name to replace Pogba. But the noises coming out of United is that Bale is no longer the type of player that they are looking to attract. Furthermore Bale and his agent have made it clear since the end of the season that Gareth is in no rush to leave and wants to see out his contract in sunny Spain even if that means sitting on the bench and playing golf.
One media source went so far as to declare that Madrid would be happy to offer Bale, Kroos and £70m to entice United to depart with the player as they look to rebuild their squad for the upcoming season
As with all things Pogba, expect this one to be one of the stories of the summer with lots of twists and turns.