Paul Pogba Left United - Bad Business, or Had To Go?

Whether Paul Pogba stays in Turin with Juventus, moves elsewhere or ultimately finds his way back to Old Trafford in a bumper deal, there will be those that will bemoan the fact that the French midfielder was ever allowed to leave for free in the first place.

On the face of it, it is hard to argue with the logic. A £50m lesson, tales of a lost fee or a lost player of star quality that got away are hard to take for fans. But nothing is ever so simple.

But the danger in football is to apply the standards of the current day to a situation that was markedly different then.

So let's rewind. Pogba signed for the Serie A side Juventus in 2012 after making just seven first-team appearances for United. At that stage he wanted to be considered as and remunerated as a first team player and he just wasn't at that level, and presumably could have gone either way - like the wayward Ravel Morrison did, for example.

To have financially pushed the boat out for a marginal or still unproven Pogba at this time would have seriously put senior noses out of joint in the dressing room and destabilised the wage structure and pecking order within the club.

You can think about it from the perspective of one player in the squad or you can take a view of what is best for the squad as a whole and that is what a manger just has to do.

Sir Alex Ferguson tried to use both Patrice Evra and Rio Ferdinand as go-betweens to get the player to re-sign but to no avail.

At the time, Ferguson said: "It's disappointing. I don't think he showed us any respect at all, to be honest. I'm quite happy that if they [footballers] carry on that way, they're probably better doing it away from us."

Manchester United: Sir Alex Ferguson's regret over Paul Pogba

And it was a statement that he elaborated on later:

‘There are one or two football agents I simply do not like, and Mino Raiola, Paul Pogba’s agent is one of them,’ writes Ferguson in his book, Leading.

‘I distrusted him from the moment I met him. He became Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s agent while he was playing for Ajax, and eventually he would end up representing Pogba, who was only 18-years-old at the time.

‘We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign. But Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco.

‘He and I were like oil and water. From then on, our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to integrate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus.’

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/22/si...

But if Ferguson was right, then this summer’s transfer business could be setting very bad precedents for United, specifically given Mourinho’s links to both Raiola and Portuguese super agent Jorge Mendes.

As it stands, and ahead of any deal for Pogba, United have already agreed to pay the 34-year-old free agent Zlatan Ibrahimovic, another of Raiola’s clients, upwards of £200,000 a week to sign. And then there is the Armenian Henrikh Mkhitaryan – another of Raiola’s clients, signed by United for around £30m. They are all good players, but the fact that United may end the summer with so much of their transfer business dictated by Raiola’s indulgence really goes to show both how poor United’s succession planning has been under David Moyes and Louis Van Gaal and also how Sir Alex Ferguson’s and Sir Bobby Charlton’s influence has receded – not least in the signing of Mourinho himself who they pointedly and publicly passed over on Ferguson’s retirement.

Inflated transfer dealings and hype are one thing but of more concern must be the loss of influence of two United servants who have always had the best interests of their club at heart.

Can the same really be said of those currently running the club?