Where will Paul Pogba play in 2020-21?
Will Paul Pogba’s return to Juve, hypothesized several times, take place this summer? It is the dream of Juventus fans but the unknowns are numerous
It will be a fantasy market and flexibility will be needed, said Fabio Paratici about what will happen in the next window regardless of when he will really return to the field in Serie A and in Europe. Exchanges, mainly, in the absence of liquidity. But also many unknown factors linked to the top players, who in order to move must find someone willing to pay engagements that can hardly be replicated in the short and medium term in the future or will be re-discussed from scratch with all the difficulties this entails in the negotiation phase. One of the hottest names of the month is that of Paul Pogba, who from the day when he went to Manchester United in 2016 has always been associated with Juve as a return horse punctually in the spring. Will 2020-21 be the season when it really happens?
Odds next team Pogba 2020-21
A key assumption of the reasoning is that at Juve a man of world thickness in the midfield serves more than in any other department and what he saw with Sarri in the first part of the season, with Pjanic less and less brilliant in the role of director, confirmed that he is in the middle of the field that the Bianconeri suffer most against more aggressive and organized teams in their own half. The best Juve of the last decade had Pogba, Pirlo, Vidal and Marchisio in midfield, a quartet that guaranteed access to the Champions League final in 2015 lost 3-1 against Barcelona in Berlin and made the transition between Conte and Allegri automatic . Since then, there has always been something missing for the bianconeri in the middle of the field and the zero parameter policy that last summer brought Ramsey and Rabiot did not pay in terms of quality and consistency. There are several favorable conditions for Pogba’s return to Juve, which at the moment is also the favorite destination for some non-Italian bookmakers. The first is that the Frenchman knows the environment and would not need a period of adaptation necessary for other foreign players. The second is that his agent Raiola is in excellent relations with Paratici and with the Juventus management. The third is that we are talking about a mature player, 27 years old, in the middle of his career and who won the world championship with France in 2018. Pogba at Juve in 178 appearances scored 34 goals and provided 40 assists, similar numbers to Manchester United with 150 appearances, 31 goals and 31 assists. Reliability is a word highly sought after by Juve as a basic requirement for putting hand in the midfield. However, there are also numerous complications, before which it is the engagement that the Red Devils have to pay for the 20 million euros per season, including bonuses. Paratici himself stressed that supporting this type of engagement in football in the next few years is unrealistic and Juve already has a lot of contracts to thin out given the impact of the Ronaldo operation. Another doubt is related to the physical condition of a player who in his experience in the Premier League in four incomplete seasons has already missed 56 games, an average of 14 per year. A first plausible scenario is therefore to frame the Pogba operation within an exchange, not necessarily two with Manchester United but with three or more teams, a formula in vogue in the NBA and which could become current currency in football in the next seasons. Pjanic (who in recent days has been joined to Barcelona right in an exchange with Arthur) and Rabiot are names that Juve could spend on operations that reinforce the midfield without further raising the number of players. However, Juve also has several competitors. Real Madrid can count on the possibility of guaranteeing the same engagement that he perceives at Manchester United and the suggestion of working with a compatriot like Zidane, particularly esteemed by the midfielder. The same estimate that binds him to Conte, architect of his launch in the top continental football after arriving in 2012 on a free transfer, and for this reason Inter is another candidate even if in the third row. Then there are the tracks linked to Chelsea and Arsenal because even in the Premier League the top companies could try to strengthen or change from a tactical point of view by exchanging the players. Staying at Manchester United is currently the second most probable hypothesis and could become the first if the uncertainties related to Italian football forced the Serie A clubs to absorb the impact of lost revenue without the possibility of going to the onslaught of valuable names of the international market.
