Liverpool are already staring down the barrel of a shocking season. But Paul Pogba should be an unlikely source of transfer reassurance for owners FSG. The list of the top 20 most expensive football transfers of all time is a surprisingly hit-and-miss affair. Romelu Lukaku features on it twice, with both moves going down as major flops. Liverpool’s sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona sits in third place. But perhaps nobody surpasses Paul Pogba, whose move to Manchester United still ranks as one of the 10 most expensive deals in history — bookended by two separate free transfers to Juventus.
It’s a statistic that sums up the Frenchman’s rather curious career, one full of peaks and troughs. He has found himself the subject of ridicule and scorn on occasion, epitomised by his second release from Old Trafford in the summer. But he has also spent time as one of football’s hottest properties, as the eye-watering transfer record attests.
The midfielder is being forced to undergo eight weeks of rehabilitation following surgery before he is able to return to first-team training in Turin, and may not return until Juventus travel to Verona on November 10, according to Get French Football News. The 29-year-old’s rest period would see him given the green light to return to training on October 31 but would need weeks to get up to competitive match fitness.
Di Maria has now signed a one-year deal at Juventus as he looks to continue playing at the highest level ahead of November’s World Cup in Qatar. The player has already made 122 appearances for the national team and scored 25 goals in the process. Last year, the forward helped the team to their first major honour in 28 years as Argentina claimed the Copa America title. Di Maria previously enjoyed a spell in the Premier League and made 27 appearances for Manchester United during the 2014/15 season.