This idea of our execs wanting to protect value in an asset is a joke and I would even go as far as to say that it's behind some of the divisions within the squad that have been alluded to recently. Nothing good will ever come of us rewarding mediocrity, which is what we see from Pogba more often than not.
Mediocrity is everywhere on the pitch for us, putting money to one side a moment, Pogba’s performances are symptomatic of a team that don’t perform on the pitch in almost any area consistently. He’s proven this by performing every time he’s away from United in functional teams (this is difference with him and others in the squad imo.)
I’d argue we should be keeping the core of talented players we have and build on that with the next manager. Some just want the ‘saga’ to end but to me it’s cutting our nose off to spite our face in the long term.
We should be trying to structure a functional midfield that accomodates one of the few world class players we have. Rather than consigning ourselves to guaranteed mediocrity with McFred and Grandpa Matic who offer nothing remotely like what Pogba
can.
To me it’s so simple, just buy a top level DM because we need one REGARDLESS of whether Pogba stays or goes, if he stays you then get the best from him and we have two top level midfielders (it worked with Matic when he gave us 3 months before his legs gave out.) Or back to relegation fodder walking through us.
Look at the players we’re linked with, we’re never going to compete with the top teams in our league if we let our best players go and replace them with just ‘decent’ players like Neves for example.