José Mourinho coy on Paul Pogba and hints at other options

  21 July 2016    Read: 1342
José Mourinho coy on Paul Pogba and hints at other options
José Mourinho has said he has three different choices for his final major transfer, of which Paul Pogba is only one.
Although the Manchester United manager did not directly name the Juventus midfielder, he was clear that Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman, has been told of a trio of players for the position.

Paris Saint-Germain’s Blaise Matuidi and Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic could be options for the Portuguese, who said of Pogba: “I don’t confirm and I don’t deny. I cannot tell. First of all because I don’t think it’s correct to speak about players from other clubs. He’s a Juventus player, not a Manchester United player. The only thing I can say is that my board, my directors, did a fantastic job to do 75% of the job I asked them to do.

“I asked them for four profiles of players, I gave them a few options and they did for me 75% of the job and we just have 25% to do before 31 August. So we are in a great position to do what I consider will be a great market for us.” Those players already acquired are Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly.

Luke Shaw, meanwhile, has admitted he feared he may never play again after breaking his right leg last season. Shaw suffered a double fracture in Manchester United’s 2-1 defeat by PSV Eindhoven last September, which finished the left-back’s season.

He made his comeback in Saturday’s 2-0 win at Wigan Athletic, playing the first-half before being taken off at half-time. He said: “I think when I did it, the first thought that went through my head was: ‘Am I going to play football again or how long am I going to be out for?’ It wasn’t too much about the pain because I could deal with that.

“But there was a fear about how long it was going to take or if I was I was even going to be back playing football. But as I went through it [the recovery process] I knew I was coming back and I’m not looking back, I’m just looking forward now. My leg feels great, I just want to push on in this pre-season and get fully fit.”

Of Mourinho, Shaw said: “I’m really looking forward to working with him … I’ve spoken to him a couple of times, all the players have talked as well, we are going to be challenging for every title that we can go for this season.

“It’s a fresh new start with a new manager, we’re bringing in some great players, maybe there’s a couple more to come; we all feel strong as a group and with the tactical side of what José wants to do we’re practising in training and hopefully we can take that into games and show a very strong side.”

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