Dubai: Paul Pogba faces an almighty task to justify his colossal price tag at Manchester United, as he is “not even close” to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s stratospheric level.
That’s the view of the former United striker, Dwight Yorke, who on Thursday echoed his ex-teammate Paul Scholes’s reservations about the Frenchman’s inflated worth vis-a-vis the world’s two best players.
Pogba will arrive at United from Juventus for a world-record transfer fee of £112 million (Dh541.27m) by Saturday, according to British media reports, leading Scholes to opine earlier this week: “I just don’t think he is worth that. For that sort of money, you want someone who is going to score 50 goals a season like Ronaldo or Messi. Pogba is nowhere near there yet.”
“I agree with Paul Scholes,” Yorke, who like Scholes was part of United’s treble-winning team of 1999, told Gulf News at the JW Marriott Marquis hotel in Dubai. “He’s certainly not the finished article. He’s 24. When you put him in comparison to Ronaldo and Messi, he’s not even close [to them], I don’t think.”
Yorke, who was in the UAE to promote Gulf Oil Middle East’s partnership with United, added that even the world’s current costliest player, Gareth Bale, is superior to the French international.
“If you look at what [fees] Ronaldo (£80m in 2009) and Bale (£86m in 2013) have gone for, they are people who are going to score you tons of goals, who are going to dominate games, who are going to play a major part for your team week in, and week and out,” the 44-year-old said. “I don’t think Pogba is quite that type of player. I think he’s a very good player, he will make his impact, but he won’t score you 30-odd goals and he certainly won’t make you 50 goals a season.
“I think his all-round game, as Paul Scholes said, he’s got a lot to prove. He’s more in the [the former Arsenal and France midfielder] Patrick Vieira mould. You look back at Patrick Vieira’s career and he didn’t score a great deal of goals, but he was very influential in midfield.
“I think that’s what we’re hoping to get from Pogba at Manchester United.”
Despite his misgivings about Pogba’s eye-watering cost — although he stressed “that’s the way the English Premier League is, with the enormous TV revenue” — Yorke insists the midfielder will “be a great acquisition”.
He hailed Pogba’s familiarity with United, having spent a brief spell there as a youngster until his move to Juventus in 2012, and the midfielder’s “aggressiveness” and “attacking skill”.
Yorke, a United ambassador who scored 48 times in 96 appearances for the club between 1998 and 2002, was even more effusive in his praise about a stellar signing already at Old Trafford — Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
He dismissed suggestions that the Swedish superstar is “over the hill” at the age of 34.
“He’s someone who’s chomping at the bit and I still feel he’s got a lot in the locker,” Yorke insisted.
Yorke is also relishing Ibrahimovic’s prospective partnership with Wayne Rooney. He lauded the new United boss Jose Mourinho’s pledge to play the England man in his traditional striking role, rather than in the deep-lying midfield role he operated in under the Portuguese’s predecessor Louis van Gaal.
The former Trinidad and Tobago international is convinced that “a firing Wayne Rooney and a firing Zlatan is a devastating cocktail” which, if the pair play to their full potential, “Manchester United will go on to win the Premier League”.
Could they be as effective as Yorke and Andy Cole, the prolific duo that plundered 53 goals between them en route to United’s 1999 treble of Premier League title, European Cup and FA Cup?
“I’m not so sure they will be,” Yorke replied, laughing.
“I would be delighted if they could score that number of goals in a season.”
