Paul Pogba left Manchester United to return to Turin last summer, but he barely played in his first season at Juventus due to injury. The French midfielder experienced his first starting match in more than a year on Sunday night as Juventus beat Cremonese 2-0, but bad luck still hung on to No 10.
Accordingly, the 2018 World Cup champion was substituted after only 21 minutes of play. Juventus assessed Pogba’s injury on Monday morning and revealed he has a thigh problem. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, while the club did not give a timeline for Pogba’s recovery, the midfielder is expected to be sidelined for at least 20 days.
It deals a blow to Juventus, who are currently second in Serie A, three points ahead of Inter Milan. The Bianconeri will be particularly disappointed with the price they paid to secure the signing of Pogba after just a few months.
Pogba is constantly injured.
Pogba is said to earn 10 million euros a season in Turin after signing a lucrative contract as a free agent last summer. Currently, Juventus have been paying around 60,000 euros for every minute Pogba plays this season.
Coach Massimiliano Allegri has built the Juventus team around Pogba but fitness problems make that vision rarely come true. He returned to Juventus after six years away from the club but suffered a pre-season knee injury and was forced to miss the first weeks of the season.
As soon as the Frenchman recovered from that problem, he suffered a thigh problem and was unable to play for a minute for the first three months of the season, which knocked the former Manchester United star out of the 2022 World Cup.
Pogba finally made his Juventus debut at the end of January, but fitness remained a concern and he didn’t play for the Bianconeri until February 28, more than seven months since joining. CLUB. Since then, the Old Trafford man has played a total of 10 games in all competitions and pocketed a last-minute assist in Juventus’ 1-1 draw with Sevilla in the first leg of the Europa League semi-final.
After making a positive impact from the bench in that encounter, Pogba was awarded his first start by Allegri on Sunday, but he couldn’t play more than a quarter of the game before falling ill again. . He was seen crying in his shirt and covering his face before plunging down the tunnel with Angel Di Maria. Despite constant injuries, Juve fans still sympathized and gave the French midfielder a round of applause.
Juventus began to feel that Pogba’s salary of 10 million euros per season was too expensive.
In Manchester, the 1993 midfielder missed hundreds of games over six seasons but in Turin, after just nine months, he played for just 161 minutes. How is it that the team’s highest-paid player can only play for 108 minutes in Serie A? The question has become a dilemma.
Pogba still has three years left on his contract, but reports have surfaced that Juventus are frustrated with the No 10’s current season and are likely to consider selling or terminating his contract this summer. However, sources in Italy say the club will support Pogba during his treatment and have yet to make a decision on his future after this season.
Whatever Pogba and Juventus decide to do in the summer of 2023, both sides are certainly not happy about what happens this season.
Lu Feng | 22:46 05/17/2023
