When it comes to a transfer fee, a player is only worth what another club is willing to pay for them.
Last year when Pogba agent was pushing for a move, the accepted wisdom was that Utd valued him at over £100m, but despite all the noise, RM didn’t come in for him. Nobody did, so any valuation was just fanciful and wishful thinking.
That wishful thinking is still being demonstrated here on the Caf, with people talking about taking £50m or £60m if we can get that for him.
Really? On what basis is Pogba worth anything near those sort of numbers?
Clubs pay that sort of transfer fee for proven, top talents who are in form and at the top of their game, or for exciting young prospects where the buying club is prepared to take a massive financial risk to get the player.
But what we have is a player who isn’t an exciting future prospect and who has a proven track record of over 4 seasons, more than half of his senior professional career, of inconsistent, often mediocre and even poor quality.
It’s not as if it’s a blip of poor form. Despite a few short periods where he’s performed and shown the best of his talent, we have long term, solid evidence that despite undoubted natural ability, this player isn’t actually that good overall. What club is going to pay a high transfer fee based on that?
Add in the sort of wages and add-ons that Pogba and his agent would be looking for, the fact is he’s 28 years old, the current and future financial situation resulting from the pandemic and the fact there’s been no apparent interest in him.
Taking all this into account, Pogba’s current value must be closer to Zero than £50m. Unless we’re happy to accept a cut price deal for him next year, it looking increasingly likely to be a case of running down the clock and Pogba walking on a free in 2 years time.