As somebody who has supported Manchester United for 31 years, it gives me no pleasure to say the following. But, never before have I actually been overjoyed to see a player leave the club.
Yes, Mr Pogba, that means you. There’s comfort in knowing that this corner is far from alone in owning such sentiments. Thankfully now at least the clown has been got out of the club. The circus is over.
Never has so much been expected from someone, so many column inches devoted to somebody or oxygen expended in discourse about a person who delivered so little. Even Barry Cowen had managed to instigate a few initiatives before his Party ‘leader’ utilised the first available opportunity to remove the greatest threat to his own job!
In one way, there is a mixture of surprise and dismay that United ever even went about bringing him back. Sir Alex Ferguson got very few big calls wrong during his glory laden tenure at Old Trafford but it should been signpost enough that Pogba was more trouble than he was worth when the wily old Scot let him go a decade or so ago.
After all, other seemingly surprising moves were instigated to jettison other troublesome egos like Paul Ince, David Beckham, Lee Sharpe and others and he fairly hit the nail on the head each time.
Hopefully the above photo will be the last of the overpaid waster which will have to appear in this space. Give me a team of lads like Paul Parker, Steve Bruce, David May, Denis Irwin, Clayton Blackmore, Bryan McClair or Phil Jones any day of the week. In the ways which really count, as a man, Pogba wouldn’t be fit carry the gearbag of any of the others.
Whatever about being rid of the French ponce, there will – or at least should – be genuine regret and sadness at seeing brilliant and loyal performers like Nemenja Matic and Juan Mata leaving the club. The latter was one of the most under rated and under appreciated players ever to pull on the red jersey.
Jesse Lingard is apparently also on the move, presumably to West Ham as a replacement for recently retired skipper Mark Noble. Lingard could never be described as being under rated but his departure might be more acutely felt than those of Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial and yes, Harry Maguire, who should all be given gate.
Of course, if all or any of the above are offloaded, they will need to be replaced. As, presumably, will be the French fraud. At this point it will be admitted that not a whole lot is known here about Erik ten Hag, or, indeed, the player who has been identified as most likely to be his first big signing – Frenke De Jong.
However, already it is apparent that the club’s credibility has been restored somewhat as they definitely seem to have more leverage in the transfer market than had been the case for far too long.
Of course it would have been huge if they had been able to attract the likes of Erling Haaland from Dortmund rather than see him going to the noisy neighbours. But there may have been more to that scenario than met the eye.
For now though, the best business ten Hag can do in the transfer market is to continue to offload excess baggage.
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