A cool £100million is about to change hands between Manchester United and Juventus, with a certain Paul Pogba moving back to his former club, as a world record deal moves ever closer to being completed, so close, in fact, that the transfer could be signed, sealed and delivered by Friday.
Pogba to Manchester United has been the saga of the transfer window this summer, with talks, talks and more talks, and then a little bit more of that talk, talking place between the English Premier League club and Juventus. With Juve holding out for a world record fee, and then some more, knowing that they have the upper hand in the negotiations, Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward has had to use all his negotiating nous to try and thrash out a deal, but it looks like the Italian champions will get what they have been asking for, in the end.
According to The Guardian, Manchester United are set to have their latest offer of €110m (£92m) plus €10m (£8.3m) in add-ons accepted by Juventus, provided Jose Mourinho's side agree to pay a further €5m (£4.1m), if Pogba ends up extending his contract at Old Trafford. On top of all that, Manchester United will also have to around £20m to Pogba's agent Mino Raiola, with Juventus adamant that the Premier League side must shell out the entire amount themselves. Add Pogba's wages, which is expected to be somewhere between £250,000 and £290,000, and the transfer really reaches ridiculous proportions.
At the end of the day it all comes down to silly money in a transfer window that seems to have gone bonkers. But, with Manchester United determined to land Pogba and the money there to spend, the better option is certainly to use it to strengthen the squad, rather than keeping it safely locked up in the bank like Arsenal are doing at the moment.
Such is the nature of the beast now that to compete, especially when you are trying to begin a new era, you need to spend money, and Manchester United, with all their commercial revenue and the new TV money that is coming in, certainly have bucketloads to spend.
If Pogba is the solution to changing Manchester United's fortunes only time will tell, but having one of the best central midfielders in the world, who at 23, can only get better, certainly cannot hurt.
With Mourinho now at the helm, and the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan signing on the dotted line, Manchester United are certainly heading in the right way as far as competing for the Premier League title in the new season is concerned, and Pogba could be the final piece of that puzzle.
Real Madrid are also thought to be keeping an eye on the negotiations, with manager Zinedine Zidane expressing his admiration for his French compatriot, but it looks like Manchester United will end up winning the transfer battle, if paying £100m for a player can be called a win, that is.
