So About Paul Pogba...

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Look I'm not saying he's not a good player but I don't see how he's worth more than Gareth Bale.

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Because it's 3 years later. Prices go up over time. That's how things work.

Ok, well Manchester United is willing to pay that.

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All the English teams have ridiculous money. Yet they all still suck.

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Helps that the pound is stronger than the Euro and they have great television deals...suck is relative, but they were disappointing this past year.

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I watch a lot of France games (I follow them for heritage reasons) including outside of major tournaments and I have seen Juventus play in the CL quite a bit and I've never really seen "it" from him or has he ever made me go "wow".

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Due to the setup of the French NT, Pogba had a lot of defensive responsibilities.

That he can perform those at a very high level when asked but also, when freed up to join the attack and get in the box more, continually does things like when he almost broke that German CB's ankles with the crossover before sending the cross for France's 2nd goal means it's pretty hard to say he's overrated. It's the reason you don't hear it from people who watch him 30 matches a season.

That said, €120m (or whatever it would be by the time the English pound stops free falling) is an absurd price for any player, but, I suppose, there are some clubs to whom that's like Bill Gates paying $100 for a cup of coffee.

I guess you can't discount that he has all the flair and personality to be a "face of the club" type presence for the next decade and will very likely provide what a vintage Ya-Ya Toure did offensively out of midfield while being a better defender than Ya Ya.

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I don't watch Serie A but Higuain just scored like 30 goals so idk how much stock I'd put into that

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Serie A is still the most difficult league to amass inflated individual stats. . .

Not making any argument about quality etc but simply that teams go the extra mile in setting up tactically to limit spaces / limit spread out play --"real end to end stuff" -- in a way you don't see as often in other leagues.

Managers go to a lot more effort to shut down star players and make others beat them and also have a seemingly "mutual respect" to simply shut matches down when the result is decided to avoid embarrassing scorelines.


Napoli was a well oiled machine this season and Higuian still missed his normal share of sitters.

However, Insigne was practically un-markable most of the season and along with Hamsik (as well as Callejon, Mertens, Allan, Jorginho) really just kept setting up Higuian with sitters to a degree I haven't seen since Totti was feeding Batistuta.

i get the 100M valuation 2 years ago but he really hasn't progressed THAT much in 2 years, in my non-expert eyes

i just think some shine has been lost and he's 2 years older and hasn't become the player we thought he would be at this point, 2 years ago. he's still young but i just don't see "most expensive player ever" quality. bale was 23 when he went to real and he had already had a season or 2 of fricking up the premier league (and he had the marketing angle of "british player on real" they care about so much)

although i will say pogba's physicality is tailored for the PL