da luck： News that Paul Pogba may be sold by Juventus sooner rather than later has coincided perfectly with the not-so-surprising news that Abou Diaby is more or less out for the rest of the season. But to be fair, he was never really ‘in’.
da spicy bet： Forgive me, though, if I don’t thrash around, arms flailing at the thought of Paul Pogba in an Arsenal shirt. I’m not going to attempt to peddle the idea that he isn’t a good player with immense potential; he clearly is. At Juventus, Antonio Conte has the option to rotate Pogba in and out of the side for one of his first-choice midfielders. As well as that, Pogba has shown his versatility by operating from one of the wing-back positions during a current mini injury crisis.
Italy is clearly a re-emerging force in European football, but it’s evident that Serie A hasn’t quite reached the plateau of the Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga. The fact that France is luring away Italy’s best players is telling enough. Juventus, back-to-back champions, may be powerless to stop a 20-year-old from walking away. They’ll receive a handsome fee from his future club, but for the most part that’s not the point.
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In light of Diaby’s perennial injury situation, Pogba would appear the ideal player to fill in where Diaby has been seen as something of an ace. Though it should be noted that for all the high praise Diaby has received – and there has been a lot among Arsenal supporters – he’s not as good or effective as he’s been portrayed. For every good performance can come one or two anonymous outings. But it’s the whole thing of creating hype and hysteria around a player who has been missing for a long period of time. You forget the shortcomings very easily.
But at present, it would be wayward to imply that Pogba, or indeed Diaby, is some kind of missing link in the Arsenal team, as if something isn’t quite right with the current setup.
For much of the summer, Marouane Fellaini was touted as the perfect addition to the Arsenal midfield. People, however, failed to look at his shortcomings. His slow, sluggish approach; his inability to play the brand of football Arsene Wenger deploys, or at least seeks to deploy. The Belgian may be a contrast to the diminutive, technical players at the Emirates, but is he the right complement?
The same goes for Pogba. The first thing that should be said is that Pogba is far more technically skilled than Fellaini, but that’s not how he’s been labelled. His strength, aggressive style and defensive capabilities are the characteristics that people are putting to the fore, rather than his intelligence, for example. Despite how well Arsenal have been performing and the value they’ve seen and extracted from Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta, a powerful midfield figure is still being seen as something of a necessity.
But why do Arsenal need that? Manchester United won a league title last year without a clear defensive midfielder. Fiorentina have gone completely against the grain in fielding three midfielders who are far from defensively minded in David Pizarro, Borja Valero and Alberto Aquilani. And then there’s Barcelona, the unshakeable benchmark for possession football. Spain, too, the best national team in the world, have absolutely nothing in the way of an imposing figure in their midfield.
So the point about Pogba is that while yes, he is a good player who could provide a lot for the Arsenal team, he isn’t a missing link or a player with vital qualities for a top European side; at least not the qualities that most think of him for.
Should Arsenal break the bank to sign Paul Pogba?
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