Three years ago, Man City wanted to take Paul Pogba to the blue half of Manchester. Instead, he returned to Juve, where his career unraveled.
Julien Laurens and Stewart Robson discuss Paul Pogba signing for Monaco, having not played football competitively since September 2023. after a successful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport allowing the midfielder to return to action in March 2025.
He's yet to make his comeback as he continues to build up his fitness after a hiatus of 759 days -- he last saw game-time as a second-half substitute in a. He won't make the squad to face Man City, with Monaco deciding over the summer that he needs at least three months on the training pitch before being considered for a return. "We are following his plan," said Monaco head coach Adi Hütter at a news conference on Tuesday."We expected him maybe for the game against"At the moment he's doing more of the warming up, and also in small-sided games. Now he's increasing a lot, he's doing well at the moment, and I hope after the national team break he can be a part of the squad."squad ahead of the World Cup next summer. There is, though, a long way to go before that even becomes an outside possibility.It was against City that he put in probably his best performance in a United shirt, scoring twice in awin in April 2018 that temporarily delayed Guardiola's side winning the title. The performance was the type of which United thought they were getting when they splashed a then-world-record £89.3 million transfer fee to bring him back from Juventus in 2016. Three years ago, Man City wanted to take Paul Pogba to the blue half of Manchester. Instead, he returned to Juve, where his career unraveled. Physically imposing and technically excellent, he was close to unplayable in the second half at the Etihad Stadium as United battled back from 2-0 down. The issue for then-manager Jose Mourinho was that Pogba didn't do it often enough. There was a sense of excitement from United fans in the summer of 2018 after he had helped France win the World Cup in Russia, scoring in the final against. Mourinho's team finished second to City the previous season and there was a feeling that Pogba, newly crowned world champion, was ready to finally step up and take the By then, however, Mourinho was already tiring of mis midfielder's streaky form and, speaking at his first preseason news conference after the World Cup, he was in no mood to sugarcoat his feelings. "I don't think it's about us getting the best out of him, it's about him giving the best he has to give,""Why? Because it's closed for a month, where he can only think about football. Where he's with his team on the training camp, completely isolated from the external world, where they focus just on football, where the dimensions of the game can only motivate. During a season, you can have a big match then a smaller match, then one even smaller, then you can lose your focus, you can lose your concentration, then comes a big match again." It was a damning assessment of Pogba by Mourinho and one of a series of rifts between the pair during their two and a half years together at Old Trafford. At one pointthat appeared to mock the Portuguese coach's dismissal. He insisted it was nothing more than a misunderstanding, but it didn't go down well with the club's hierarchy. Smiling again under Mourinho's replacement, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Pogba got 13 Premier League goals during the 2018-19 campaign. In the three seasons that followed, he managed a total of five.On his return to Juventus -- where he scored 34 goals in 178 games between 2012 and 2016 -- he claimed he had come"home." It quickly turned sour, and after testing positive for DHEA, a testosterone-enhancing supplement, he said that, rather than feeling support from thePogba was tearful after signing his contract with Monaco in July. He said pointedly that he was thankful for"the trust" they have placed in him having felt that much of the football world had turned their back after his ban. At the end of his own social media post announcing the deal with Monaco, Pogba promised a"renaissance." It's a long way back for a player who was once considered one of the best in the world. As his new club prepares for a Champions League showdown with City, he's still waiting to take his first steps back toward center stage.
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