Even though Juventus are a huge, successful club, well on their way to win a third Serie A title, they can’t compete with the big money in Europe right now, especially not with the likes of Paris Saint-Germain, who are really interesting in signing Paul Pogba as soon as possible.
According to Jonathan Johnson, it’s not a matter of if PSG sign Pogba, but when. The question is how much money Juventus ask for, although we’ve seen over the last three years that money is never really something that stops the French champions from completing a deal.
According to estimates, the 20-year old French midfielder, already with 3 caps for the national side under his belt, is valued at around €34 million. However, considering who is asking , Juventus are likely going to ask for a lot more – something along the lines of what Napoli asked for Cavani, which means €50 million and more.
Is that reasonable? For a player that is barely two years into a significant role to cost that much? Pogba is probably the biggest under-21 talent right now in Europe. A talented midfielder with the perfect combination of physicality, speed and technique, capable of filling quite a few positions, proving to be a very valuable asset for Juve, showing incredible poise for such a young player.
But are Juventus in a position they need to sell? Not making it to the next stage in the Champions League is a disappointment, but the work done over the last three years has helped Juventus vastly improve its financial situation which means one season below expectations isn’t going to rock the club. However, there comes a point when a certain amount of money is too much to refuse and turn down.
This might be a microcosm of where Italian football is right now – there is now big foreign money (Except Inter, and we still haven’t seen much from them) taking over the Serie A, which makes it something of a feeder league to the richest clubs in Europe, very different from 10-15 years ago. Unless Pogba feels perfectly at home in Juventus, he’ll start trying to push for an exit if the PSG interest is true. At some point, maybe not now in January but later on, there won’t be much Juventus will be able to do but agree to the offer.