Paul Pogba wanted to join Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur when leaving Manchester United last summer but Antonio Conte turned down the Juventus man, former Serie A defender Massimo Brambati tells Tuttomercatoweb.
It’s fair to say few at Old Trafford will be watching the problems stack up for Pogba back in Turin and wish this most enigmatic and divisive of footballers was still hogging headlines for all the wrong reasons in Manchester.
Things were looking up for the World Cup winner when he marked his long-awaited return after six months out with a cameo appearance against rivals Torino recently. Since then, Pogba was dropped from the Europa League victory over Freiburg for disciplinary reasons while being consigned to yet another couple of weeks on the sidelines.
Did Paul Pogba really want to leave Manchester United for Tottenham?
“Paul Pogba was supposed to relaunch Juventus in terms of the Scudetto and the Champions League. Instead, something horrible happened,” says Brambati, the former Torino, Palermo and Italy U23 man who now works as a reporter in his home country.
Brambati draws comparisons between Pogba and Fernando Redondo; the Real Madrid great who played just 16 Serie A games in four years at AC Milan.
“I am reminded of Redondo, who arrived at Milan and was a real flop. He arrived with a really serious (injury) problem. Otherwise, I don’t remember a player presented like this and paid so much who almost never sees the field due to various injuries.”
Pogba, Gazzetta dello Sport say, takes home £115,000-a-week at Juventus. He has, therefore, earned £3,000 per minute under Max Allegri so far.
Brambati, interestingly, believes that one of Allegri’s predecessors was offered the chance to sign Pogba on a free last summer.
Imagine Conte sharing a dressing room with Pogba at Tottenham Hotspur. Is anyone else getting visions of a truckload of methos and a barrel of shaken-up Pepsi?
“(Pogba’s) attitude that shouldn’t be accepted in any club, especially by a highly paid professional. And I ask myself: is there anyone co-responsible in this situation? Maybe whoever signed him is responsible,” Brambati adds.
“I know that his first choice was Antonio Conte’s Tottenham. But the coach said no to (director Fabio) Paratici.”
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