Pogba's contract debacle is a perfect example of the short-termism that's holding Man Utd back
Stefan Bienkowski
- 5 Nov 2021 10:50 CDT
- 6 min read
Sometimes individual players have the ability to characterize entire periods in a club’s history.
Whether it’s Maradona at Napoli, Thierry Henry at Arsenal or Lionel Messi at Barcelona, great players are the first thing fans think of when they think of golden eras at their favourite clubs.
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However, that can work the other way round as well. And in the case of Manchester United’s very modern debacle, Paul Pogba seems to be the one player that sums up the dysfunctional club rather well.
Many - if not all - of the Old Trafford’s faults on the pitch can be traced back to simple but regular mistakes off it. And it certainly seems as though Pogba has got himself tangled up in that over the years.
Pogba’s contract debacle
The France international’s current contract at Man Utd is set to expire at the end of the season, which means the Premier League club runs the risk of losing a player they spent £89.3 million on in 2016 for free.
However, while that may be a serious issue for any major club in Europe, that’s not the full extent of Man Utd’s ineptitude in this situation.
According to a new report from the Daily Mail, the Old Trafford club had the opportunity to extend Pogba’s contract in 2019, when the player told his employers that he would be happy to sign a new deal.
However, in their infinite wisdom, the English giants instead opted to do nothing and waited until 2020 to trigger a clause that extended his deal in 2020. In other words, they refused to offer the player new terms when he was happy to stay and are now at risk of losing him for free.
Short-term thinking at fault
This bizarre chain of events will come as no surprise to eagle-eyed Man Utd fans, who have watched their club snatch and grasp at short-term projects for the best part of a decade now, to little success on the pitch.
Whether it be the signings of Jadon Sancho, Donny van de Beek, Aaron Wan-Bissaka or countless others, Man Utd have for some time behaved in the transfer market like a club with no long-term plan for building a team that can win silverware.
Instead, the Old Trafford side have simply thrown money at in-form players and hoped they’ll do well enough to quell dissent on the terraces and on the back pages. Add to that the rather brash decision to keep Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on as a permanent manager and it just seems as though Man Utd are making up plans as they go along.
Pogba will likely leave Man Utd next summer but the club’s troubles are sure to rumble on long after he departs for another club. And they won’t stop until the Old Trafford side start making proper plans on and off the pitch.
