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Oct 14, 2024

Pogba ‘nightmare’ over – but what now? Plus: Premier League manager pressure gauge - The Athletic

The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic’s daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox. Hello! He’s a World Cup winner and he once cost a world-record

The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic’s daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox.

Hello! He’s a World Cup winner and he once cost a world-record transfer fee. Does Paul Pogba have one more adventure in him?

Coming up:

The flawed and incomparable George Best was famously asked where it all went wrong for him — even as he lay in bed with a supermodel — and before Friday, Paul Pogba ranked as a modern equivalent.

Pogba will be able to show his grandchildren the World Cup medal he won with France in 2018. He can regale them with talk of the time Manchester United made him the most expensive player on the planet. Alongside those memories, however, will be the story of how close he was to retiring at 30, his career on the brink of being ruined by a drugs ban.

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In February, Pogba received a four-year suspension from football after testing positive for a substance that raises levels of testosterone. At a stroke, he was out of the game until 2027, as good as retired in any meaningful sense. But on Friday it emerged Pogba’s sanction would be cut to 18 months, setting him up for a comeback in early 2025.

Pogba, like Best, was one of the talents of his generation and his epitaph might also be one of potential unfulfilled — but after Friday’s reprieve, there’s one more chapter left to write.

Pogba’s positive test occurred in 2023 and he has not played since September of that year. He consistently protested his innocence and denied knowingly taking any banned product, but Italy’s anti-doping authority imposed a heavy penalty.

He appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and, to a point, successfully fought his corner. CAS has published its judgment in the past hour, saying it accepted Pogba’s claim that he ingested a supplement after receiving assurances from a doctor in the U.S. that it would not contravene anti-doping rules.

CAS, however, found that Pogba “was not without fault” and “should have paid a greater care” — hence its refusal to reduce his ban further. “Finally the nightmare is over,” the midfielder said. “I can look forward to the day when I can follow my dreams again.”

In January, Pogba will be free to resume first-team training. From March, when his 18-month ban officially ends, he is eligible to return to competitive football. The question is where that happens because while he remains under contract with Juventus until 2026, there’s no obvious prospect of the Italian club seeking to reintegrate him. Many expect them to part company imminently — so what next?

Juventus head coach Thiago Motta discussed Pogba’s situation over the weekend. “The club will evaluate what to do,” Motta said. “Pogba has been a great player who hasn’t played for a long time.” That’s damning with faint praise.

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Pogba was on the minimum wage of €2,000 (£1,700; $2,200) a month while his appeal played out and it was widely anticipated Juve would have terminated his deal if his four-year ban had been upheld. Common sense says Pogba will have to start afresh elsewhere.

Life for him has been an ordeal since the 2018 World Cup. Injuries impeded him and his spell at Manchester United was a busted flush by the time he left for Juve in 2022. He became embroiled in an extraordinary family feud, the precursor to a doping ban. True, it hasn’t all gone wrong, but if Pogba retains tangible ambition, this is his last-chance saloon.

With the season’s second international break upon us, TAFC thought it was a good time to take stock of the Premier League’s managerial sack race. Plenty of coaches have been feeling the heat:

Cut inside a goalkeeper’s head and you’ll find two parts grey matter to one part Minions. It takes a certain breed to enjoy the exposure of that position.

Over the weekend, the goalkeepers’ union made a fist of stealing the show, positively and negatively. Let’s start with the negatives.

We had Leeds United’s Illan Meslier shipping a baffling 97th-minute equaliser at Sunderland (above). No, me neither. We saw life come at Aaron Ramsdale fast as his old club, Arsenal, peppered his new club Southampton. And we had Liverpool’s Alisson injuring a hamstring.

But it wasn’t all grim. Everton’s Jordan Pickford delighted Goodison Park by saving a penalty from defector Anthony Gordon during a goalless draw with Newcastle United. David de Gea kept out two as Fiorentina beat AC Milan in Serie A. And Paulo Gazzaniga cast himself as the new spot-kick king with three stops from three different takers in Girona’s 2-1 La Liga win over Athletic Bilbao.

Move aside, Emiliano Martinez.

After their Champions League takedown of Bayern Munich, Aston Villa looked leggy against Manchester United yesterday. In seeking another off-the-bench intervention from Jhon Duran, the game was a step too far.

Duran, though, has more than earned membership to the super-sub club — that renowned collection of impact players who score as substitutes time and time again. Footballers don’t set out to be regarded that way but, like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at United, fans can reward them with incredible levels of affection.

Duran has claimed 89 per cent of his Villa goals off the bench. His goals-per-90-minutes ratio this season is almost off the charts. Elias Burke has been writing about others who have or had that knack and kudos to you if (without cheating) you named Matt Derbyshire as the Premier League’s top-ranking super sub. I didn’t.

Friday’s quiz teaser set you the task of telling us the Premier League seasons in which the lead at the top of the table changed the most and the least. The answers were:

Most — 2018-19 (32 times)

Least — 2019-20 (two times)

At Everton, they’re inclined to think that nothing is going their way. But was this goal-line clearance against Newcastle — Iliman Ndiaye bending the laws of physics — the moment when their luck changed?

(Top photo: Giuseppe Maffia/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Phil grew up near Edinburgh in Scotland and joined The Athletic in 2019 as its Leeds United writer. He is now lead writer of The Athletic FC newsletter. He previously worked for the Yorkshire Evening Post as its chief football writer. Follow Phil on Twitter @PhilHay_