Manchester United are being linked with a world record £100m bid for Juventus and France star Paul Pogba, but new stats show he would be a waste of money.
France’s Paul Pogba
According to the likes of Sky Sports Red Devils chief executive Ed Woodward has begun negotiations in the last 48 hours that could see Pogba return to Old Trafford for the astronomical fee, despite leaving four years ago for less than £1m.
Reports suggest Juventus want to keep the 23-year-old but most clubs would find it difficult to resist such an earth shattering deal and the player could stand to earn as much as £300,000 a week.
New Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho won’t have it all his own way in Pogba pursuit
Mourinho won’t have it all his own way
Jose Mourinho may not have it all his own way, though, as Pogba is also wanted by the self-styled Special One’s former club Real Madrid.
Pogba has steadily grown into France’s Euro 2016 campaign after a poor start which saw him dropped for the second group game.
France’s Paul Pogba celebrates at the end of the match
Midfielder has grown into Euros with France but is he worth £100m
He showed discipline and maturity to help repel a dominant Germany as the hosts won 2-0 to progress to the final where they will meet Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal.
But new stats compiled by football analysis website Oulala prove Pogba would be a world record waste of money based on his performances for Italian champions Juve last season.
You would expect a player rated at £100m to top the charts in the key areas of a midfielder’s game.
But Oulala.com’s stats show Pogba only ranks in the top 10 midfielders across the main five European leagues in just three out of eight key areas and is outside the top 50 in four of them.
Stats embarrassing for Pogba
In terms of shots Pogba is ranked top in Europe with a total of 124… but had just eight goals to show for it last season leaving him with a poor shot accuracy of just 37 per cent.
Pogba is ranked joint sixth in assists (12) along with a number of other European players including fellow French international teammate and West Ham star Dimitri Payet.
He has the seventh most take-ons with a total of 102 but alarmingly for Mourinho he only had 1,399 successful passes last season, leaving him in 61st place.
Only 42 of those were key passes which gives him a rank of 86th for that area of his game and the number of tackles he won (55) sees him narrowly scrape into the top 100 in Europe.
However, his lowest rank puts him well outside the top 200 with Pogba a lowly 254th in terms of pass accuracy for players that have played over 90 minutes.
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