I think his desire to leave is being massively overstated on here. It’s almost every post suggesting we have reached the point of ‘no point’. I don’t pretend to know his intentions, but is this whole unwavering and burning desire to leave thing not largely fabricated? I mean, I can’t really see some sort of sustained campaign or restlessness coming from him, or even this agent everyone hates so much. If people can look past this notion that he’s only pretending he’s injured, he ‘wants to leave’ no more than Rooney did (before signing two new contracts over another 5 years) or De Gea, before doing the same. I’m not seeing this Alexis Sanchez at Arsenal situation, or Modric/Berbatov at Spurs etc where the player is practically kicking and screaming. It’s just not there, people are exaggerating the extent to which they seem to have concluded his intentions. Unless, of course, his absence through ‘injury’ is serving as some sort of daily evidence for them, because there isn’t much else most of the time.
From what I see, and just my experience observing football over the years, Pogba is just as likely to sign a new deal here as he is to leave, and if one was to happen as early as January, then I’d put the former far more likely still. Press, as always, have their share to answer for. Pogba of course did give some ammunition at the beginning of the summer, but I think they then ran with it, knowing he’s our most popular player and tried to force a story/saga out of it (probably to create a welcome United misery story as they love). Before pre-season they were writing crap about him planning to go on strike to ‘force a move’ (which he did not for one second look like doing the entire pre-season) and even up until the final week of the window, there were ‘still time for Pogba to leave United’ stories.
I’m not naive as to think he has not/does not consider leaving. But that conclusion can be drawn before any comments of the summer, simply by doing the maths. He’s 26, there are some doubts about where the team is headed, and he may feel another club could better give him what he wants. But I don’t get the impression he is desperate to go by any stretch, there’s simply been little evidence of that, and there have been many other cases in football where there has been.