With questions remaining about Yaya Toure’s long-term future at Manchester City, there is one perfect replacement, who would give an extra edge to their rivalry with United.
The debate on whether or not Yaya Toure will still be a Manchester City player next season will rage on for a while yet.
If he does go, they will call him irreplaceable. And yet he might not be; because there is a player in Europe who, at just 20, has all the attributes to be the perfect replacement for the Ivory Coast midfielder.
And if signing someone of such great promise isn’t enough, City would also be getting one over their biggest rivals.
Since leaving Manchester United on a free last summer, Paul Pogba has been a revelation for Juventus. During his time at Old Trafford, he spoke of wanting a chance. Chances that Sir Alex Ferguson promised would come over time, but chances that came much sooner following his acrimonious move that some say was more at the behest of Pogba’s agent than anything else.
Whatever the reason, the Frenchman’s move to Italy has lit the touch-paper on a career set to blaze for many years to come. He has already made 28 appearances for the Bianconeri, scoring five goals and earning his first international cap last week against Georgia.
It was amid controversy that United signed Pogba from Le Havre in 2009, and that controversy was no less when he left three years later. But he is now showing exactly what all the fuss was about.
And despite his agent stating only last month that his client will remain in Italy, that was after he had said back in January that he would definitely stay until the end of the season.
With Pogba, there seems no long-term commitment, which should prompt City to at least make an offer.
For a player whose agent is very much in the public eye, a club as rich as City would do well to make their intentions known; because agents who talk a lot usually do so for only one reason.
They wouldn’t be signing a player who would commit for the next ten years. But they would be signing one who has all the attributes to succeed Toure; someone who is potentially the best of his generation; and someone who may move to The Etihad for one additional reason: to show United, up close and personal, what they are missing.
Every now and then, usually because he is prompted to by journalists, Pogba comments on his former team or former manager. And he says things like, “Manchester United is behind me,” and “Ferguson is no longer part of my life”.
He speaks differently to most players who leave Old Trafford. He speaks like his time there was no big deal.
You get the sense that if City could somehow sign him, they would be getting a player who wouldn’t just fill the hole left by their current talisman, but one who would do everything he could to beat United to the title as well.
Can you see Pogba ever moving to City? And if so, would he give them the edge in future title races?
images: © LivingOS,
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