The Pogba War

I always find fans complaining about prices funny tbh, when they are the sole reason the prices are so high.

Fan interest creates tv deals, sponsorship and so on, the people that watch the sport are the reason footballers get paid like they do.

If you don't like it, don't watch it because whether you realise it or not you are the main contributors for the prices being like they are.

Mr Nick09 wrote:

Firenze wrote:good luck with that nobody is goning to pay absurd fees for Morata, 35M is his value. Well, I should say no elite club will. He wouldn't go to China.

dont be absurd, ofc some team could pay a very high fee for him. You act like this is your first transfer window

I dont feel any special way about Morata, atletico youth. i guess that's why they might be trying to sign that neymar knock off lad Gabriel Jesus

pls tell me a top club which will pay 50-60m for Morata

Chelsea were your only hope and they just dropped cash on Battyboi

Valkyrja wrote:

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Ignoring that though, i don't remember a big game where he didn't play well.

Barca final he was great despite being asked to play on the wing and he was great in both Bayern legs despite Juve's failure to win.

I don't particularly remember a CL game where he didn't play well in. I was critical of him before last season as i thought his decision making and passing was sometimes a bit wayward.

He's come so far in those departments this season though, attempts to discredit him are very silly. There's no midfielders which are obviously better than him, there are some which do certain things better but he also does certain things better than the rest too.

You don't remember a poor performance from Pogba in a big game but a few days ago you were criticising Modric for not turning up in big games

Because i have seen dozens of examples, get over yourself lol.

Pogba hasn't played at the top level long enough to form a comparison. From what he has played against he's been fine.

Funny that a Hazard fan wants to discredit another top players performances in big games though

ES wrote:While Valkyrja assessment might be wrong, he does have a point regarding the price of players, it has gotten extremely silly. The invisible hand of the market shouldn't be the proprietor of such price tags anymore imo, its time UEFA introduce a banded regulatory framework, this needs to be modulated imo

The inflation is brutal, though understandable.

Generally speaking, clubs ask for outrageous amounts of money when they don't want to sell. Tottenham didn't want to sell Bale, so they slapped a price tag of 100m on his head. They didn't think Real Madrid was stupid enough to go through with it, but it turned out, we were

Same thing with Pogba, Juventus wanted to ward off vultures by putting an obscene 120m price tag on him. We all know he's not worth it, in fact, he's not even worth half that sum. But when you have somebody stupid and desperate enough to go through with it, prices are bound to get inflated.

Ronaldo when he came to Real Madrid, he was the best player in the world, champion of England and Europe and a Ballon d'Or winner. He was worth every penny Real Madrid paid for him and then some; that's why nobody said he was too expensive, his talent was going in the same wavelength as his price tag. Pogba is talented, no question about it, but my god is he overpriced and overrated!

Pogba is working his way up towards Messi and Ronaldo level of expectations...  namely, unless his dominant and quasi-flawless, he's shat.  It is what it is.  Means that he's a great player whether people want to accept it or not.

For me, he's been exemplary in this Euro.  He's played in 4 different positions...  LCM, RCM, holding mid in the double pivot and even AM briefly.  Why?  Kante was suspended for a game, Lass got injured and Matuidi can only play left B2B (nothing else).  He's the only one that can do literally everything well so he's asked to compromise.  Yet people gloss over this as if it doesn't matter.

Pogba is never going to fill a stat sheet like a 100M player, I think of Zidane in terms of statistical comparisons although obviously not in the same way.

Pogba isn't the type of player to influence an entire game like Pirlo for example, he isn't a controlling central midfielder. He's a player capable of that game changing moment, has great skill, intelligence, passing range, dribbling, shooting, heading... technically he's just about perfect.

His type of skill set is very unique in my opinion. The price is more than half from marketing and popularity, lets be real, it's as much as a business as it is a sport. In terms of popularity, he's sky rocketed over the past year or so. The rest of the price is from the fact that there is no release clause in his contract so Juventus has all the leverage in the world.

Add that with the deepest pockets in football in Real Madrid and Manchester United, along with Barcelona's apparent interest last summer, and we see a grossly inflated cost but that's different from saying Pogba is overrated or a poor player.

The reason people complain now is that the difference  in terms of financial ability between the elite and the level just below is now astronomical.  Even 2 years ago when Cavani and Falcao went for 60+ mil, Juve could still afford 40+ mil.  But now, top players are going from 80-120 while Juve can only afford 50+. The wage gap is increasing as much as the transfer fee gap as well.

It's the widening gap between clubs that shocks people.

As far as worth and rating...  if a club can afford it and they want to pay it, then the player is worth it to that club.  Simple market economics.

sportsczy wrote:Pogba is working his way up towards Messi and Ronaldo level of expectations...  namely, unless his dominant and quasi-flawless, he's shat.  It is what it is.

Ronaldo has expectations? you wouldn't know

@Luca...  i think you should separate the games where he played with Sturaro, Pereyra and Padoin with those he had Marchisio and Khedira.  Pirlo couldn't be effective if Vidal, Marchisio and Pogba weren't there.  In fact, the reason he struggled so much his last years at Milan was that Seedorf, Gattuso and Ambrosini had all aged and dropped their level pretty significantly.  I won't even mention Abate's level.  It's not by magic that he suddenly raised his level at Juve.

None of these guys are Messi, Zidane, etc. level players where they can still be very effective even if their teammates are not up to par.  Pirlo just didn't have enough athleticism to be that kind of player although he was incredible.  Pogba can reach that level because he has the athleticism...  but he's still learning the game.  He just turned 23 ffs.  He's not even in his prime years.

Weak technical skill... ffs i dont know a midfielder with better technical skill and he is 23. Weak post is what that is.

When did this myth of him not performing in big games start? If he doesn't score he didn't perform? Or is it a case of "I don't watch him so he can't be good" like we do with Witsel and Hulk?

He is a central midfielder, his main job is not to score and assist, it's to pass and cover. He does it extremely well but on top of that he has amazing game changing moments all the time. I'm beginning to think that people forget that he plays at LCM and is not expected to score all the time. He constantly changes games for us, and aside from a 2 month slump, he has been really consistent these past 4 years.

About this big game nonsense, he was great against Bayern. Ask Hans or anyone that watched the game. And he was so clearly our best player in the first leg.

sportsczy wrote:@Luca...  i think you should separate the games where he played with Sturaro, Pereyra and Padoin with those he had Marchisio and Khedira.  Pirlo couldn't be effective if Vidal, Marchisio and Pogba weren't there.  In fact, the reason he struggled so much his last years at Milan was that Seedorf, Gattuso and Ambrosini had all aged and dropped their level pretty significantly.  I won't even mention Abate's level.  It's not by magic that he suddenly raised his level at Juve.

None of these guys are Messi, Zidane, etc. level players where they can still be very effective even if their teammates are not up to par.  Pirlo just didn't have enough athleticism to be that kind of player although he was incredible.  Pogba can reach that level because he has the athleticism...  but he's still learning the game.  He just turned 23 ffs.  He's not even in his prime years.

Absolutely sports, I agree with every word. I just mean stylistically he influences a game different from a player like Pirlo, especially in a system like Juventus', that was basically built around Pirlo (at that time). But let's not forget how young Pogba is and it's been a privilege to see him develop more and more each year at Juventus, with his most recent season being his absolute best.

I'm positive wherever he ends up, he'll be incredible.

Since the Barca rise everyone has become obsessed with players like Xavi and Iniesta. If not you have poor technique and suck.

Funny thing about it is that in the 90s and before most of the best midfielders around were nothing like Xavi or whatever.

There was more players like the likes of Ballack and Viera and so on, those players today would be criticised for not having the close control of a 5 ft tall midget.

Mr Nick09 wrote:Price of players will continuously go up overtime, you have players like Batshuayi being sold for 40 millions euros, 10 years ago, that would have been inconceivable. TV contracts keep going up, ad revenues, sponsoring, player wages, transfer fees. football is prospering. I m tired of people refusing to understand simple sports economics.

This is why i said the invisible hand of the market shouldnt be the proprietor, or at least the sole proprietor. Simple economics indeed, however, in certain markets around the world governments intervene. The argument for this is greater equality as wealth is redistributed which relates to what Sport says about the gap in wealth. UEFA can employ similar policies, to better modulate this, and no FFP doesnt count, that is more of a barrier of entry rather than a monetary/fiscal policy

Just to be clear... all i'm saying is that Pogba can potentially be an all time great. His repertoire is that good and complete. But he's not at that level yet. He needs to develop. At 23, he's still 2-3 years away from his early prime years as a CM.

I think that players today are being rated too harshly when you consider their age. Even Hazard is only 25 so it's not like he wasted his prime years... he's just reaching his prime. He could very easily turn things around. Same with Goetze who is only 24.

ES wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:Price of players will continuously go up overtime, you have players like Batshuayi being sold for 40 millions euros, 10 years ago, that would have been inconceivable. TV contracts keep going up, ad revenues, sponsoring, player wages, transfer fees. football is prospering. I m tired of people refusing to understand simple sports economics.

This is why i said the invisible hand of the market shouldnt be the proprietor, or at least the sole proprietor. Simple economics indeed, however, in certain markets around the world governments intervene. The argument for this is greater equality as wealth is redistributed which relates to what Sport says about the gap in wealth. UEFA can employ similar policies, to better modulate this, and no FFP doesnt count, that is more of a barrier of entry rather than a monetary/fiscal policy

Yeah because socialism and communism have been so successful... UEFA cannot do a thing as long as Europe is capitalistic and an open market. It would be illegal.

The problem Mole is not actually how good Pogba is, only a blind idiot would deny that. The problem is how far madrid fans are willing to go to protect Modric and more importantly Kroos' reputations. That lead them to say ridiculous thing as shown above

There is a difference between intervention and complete control

Just look at the broadband data industry in the US, you think thats better left as it is?

Valkyrja wrote:

There are more than six midfielders that I would rather have in my team.

MY TEAM!!! fan entitlement at its finest!

Mr Nick09 wrote:The problem Mole is not actually how good Pogba is, only a blind idiot would deny that. The problem is how far madrid fans are willing to go to protect Modric and more importantly Kroos' reputations. That lead them to say ridiculous thing as shown above

In fairness i don't think it's a Madrid fan thing, i think it's a general thing.

@Nick

agreed and I don't even know why he is compared to Modric and Kroos. Compare them to Marchisio and Khedira respectively if you wanna compare a Juve player. In our setup I wouldn't play Pogba in front of the defense because players are different, we already have 1 Marchisio, we don't need 2.

Iniesta would be a terrible DM. Pirlo would be a terrible B2B. Players do what they are good at.

Then you don't see much.

How about you tell us again why they are better than Pogba using such great arguments as their passing % and so on

I think Kroos is fabulous when his team controls the game... and struggles mightily when his team needs to defend and recover the ball. That's his limitation. That's why Casemiro was a necessity. Madrid need to compensate heavily for BBC and Marcelo's lack of defense... it becomes extremely difficult when you need to compensate in the midfield too.

The great thing with Pogba is that you don't need to compensate for him wherever he plays. So given that BBC is untouchable (or the 3 striker setup), you need all the midfielders to be well rounded without glaring weaknesses for the team to play in a pleasant way and be effective.

The flip side of that is to put a DM like Casemiro in there and play very pragmatically... so that the defense isn't completely exposed. We then rely on the individual brilliance of our strikers.

Personally, i look for ways to get Madrid to play better football while continuing to win.

Valkyrja wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:The problem Mole is not actually how good Pogba is, only a blind idiot would deny that. The problem is how far madrid fans are willing to go to protect Modric and more importantly Kroos' reputations. That lead them to say ridiculous thing as shown above

protect their reputation ? no man, you're the one who doesn't rate any of our players, sadly. siqueira, danilo, anyone ?

i dont rate madrid players but i rate danilo? The oxymoron