The former Manchester United star is finally set to make his second debut for the Bianconeri, seven months after returning to Turin…
Paul Pogba’s back!… Well, hopefully. The France international has been included in the Juventus squad for Tuesday’s Serie A clash with Torino, but nobody is getting ahead of themselves. The Bianconeri have been burned before, after all.
Indeed, Pogba’s return to Turin has just been one big, long disappointment to date, featuring one injury setback after another.
So, as the midfielder looks to belatedly make his second debut for the Bianconeri, GOAL breaks down a seemingly dream deal for Juve that has thus far proven a nightmare for everyone involved…
“Paul is back in Turin. He left as a boy and returns as a man and a champion, but there is one thing that has not changed – the desire to write unforgettable pages of club history together once more. Pogba is back and we couldn’t be happier.”
That official statement confirming Pogba’s return to Juventus last summer perfectly encapsulated the excitement surrounding the free transfer.
And it was understandable, to a degree. Juve had paid nothing to re-sign a player they had sold to Manchester United in 2016 for a then-world record £89 million ($100m).
He was still only 29, too. The hope was that the Bianconeri would at least get a couple more stellar seasons out of Pogba, who had played the best football of his club career during his first stint in Turin.
However, there were two major doubts surrounding the deal.
Firstly, Pogba was not joining a Juve squad with anything like the same level of quality as the one he had left, and there had long been concerns over his ability to shine without world-class players around him.
Secondly, and far more significantly, Pogba’s recent injury record at Old Trafford could not be construed as anything but troubling.
In his final three seasons in Manchester, he had been sidelined with injury on eight separate occasions, and with a variety of ailments. His final appearance for United had actually come in April of last year, when he limped off in a 4-0 defeat at Liverpool.
There was, then, a legitimate question mark over Pogba’s fitness, and it would not take long for us to get an answer…
(Goal)
