Paul Pogba will leave Manchester United at end of the season, claims agent

Paul Pogba has no intention of signing a new deal at Manchester United and wants to leave Old Trafford next summer, his agent has said in an interview released 24 hours before the club’s crucial Champions League tie with RB Leipzig.    In a blunt admission that is understood to have been dimly received by United, Mino Raiola admitted Pogba is “unhappy” at Old Trafford and urged the club to sell him next summer.

Pogba’s future has been the ­subject of persistent uncertainty for the past two and half years, and Raiola hopes United will seek to cash in on his ­client at the end of the season, rather than risk losing him for ­nothing when his contract expires in June 2022.

“It is pointless to go around it,” Raiola said in an interview with Tuttosport in Italy. “Better to speak clearly, look ahead and not waste time looking for culprits. Paul at Manchester United is unhappy, he is no longer able to express himself as he would like and is expected of him.

“He has to change teams, he has to change the air. He has a contract that will expire in a year and a half, but I believe the best solution for the parties is to sell in the next market.

“Otherwise the club, with whom relations are excellent, knows well that they would risk losing him on a free transfer, given that for the moment it is not the player’s intention to extend the contract. If someone doesn’t understand that, they understand very little about football. In any case, let them blame me if Paul leaves next summer.”

The timing of Raiola’s interview has raised eyebrows given that it has been published before United’s biggest game of the season and will antagonise Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, whose side must avoid defeat against Leipzig in Germany to guarantee their progress to the Round of 16.

It is understood that the interview was conducted last week as part of a series Tuttosport are doing ahead of their annual awards next Monday although the timing of publication will not sit well with United.

Raiola’s remarks about Pogba being unable to “express” himself are a reference to the player’s unhappiness with his role in the team, which has seen him used predominantly as a deeper lying midfielder by Solskjaer, although his desire to leave pre-dates the Norwegian’s arrival as coach.

It is understood Pogba, 27, would prefer the sort of playmaking role that January signing Bruno Fernandes has made his own, even though the Frenchman has seldom exerted the sort of influence on the team that the Portugal midfielder has and has been used mainly as a substitute in recent weeks.

Pogba was a club record £89 million signing from Juventus in 2016, and United have little hope of being able to recover anything approaching that fee given his struggles for form and the way the Covid-19 crisis has impacted on finances across football. Juventus and Real Madrid have both been linked with him.

United have been forced to contend with frequent talk about Pogba’s future since the player initially tried to force a move to Barcelona in the summer of 2018. He was eager to leave for Real Madrid the following summer and has fluttered his eyelashes at the Madrid club on several occasions, admitting as recently as October that it would be a “dream” to play for them one day.

Juventus seemed likely to move for Pogba last summer until the coronavirus crisis ended any prospect of that.

Despite Raiola’s claims that relations with United are good, they have had their run-ins in the past. Twelve months ago, Raiola claimed that United would “ruin Maradona, Pele and Maldini” and were “out of touch with reality and without a sporting project”.

Pogba scored his first Premier League goal since July with a superb strike in United’s 3-1 win at West Ham on Saturday, after which he adopted a diplomatic tone when asked about his current situation. 

“I’m a team player,” he said. “As long as the team win, that’s the most important, you know. I find myself good and we want to win. That’s why I came here and that’s why I want to be successful.”

Last month, he said was going through the most difficult period of his career and talked over the weekend about the debilitating impact contracting Covid-19 had on his ability to perform, with the player claiming he was frequently out of breath in matches and tired very quickly.