Paul Pogba exits Manchester United after the £93m coup that never was

“It must be the law of diminishing returns” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

The mystery of Paul Pogba and his underwhelming Manchester United career that has ended after six years might puzzle a super-sleuth brains trust of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Ironside and Columbo.

The Frenchman was the £93.2m (then) British record signing billed as a coup for United when he joined in summer 2016. The richly talented footballer who landed as a four-times Serie A-winner and Champions League finalist with Juventus and a Euro 2016 runner-up with France. He was two years from World Cup glory, scoring a superb left-foot strike in the 4-2 final triumph over Croatia, footage later emerging of a rousing pre-final team talk that cast him as a bona fide leader.

For United, there were only flashes of this glitter and stardust. His acquisition proved the coup that never was. Pogba certainly did not bomb but he failed to dazzle consistently like, say, Kevin De Bruyne or Bernardo Silva for Manchester City.

In a flatlining post-Sir Alex Ferguson era United were desperate for a totem footballer who might single-handedly yank teammates up to the level required. The expectation was close to ridiculous: as if Pogba could be a quasi-Diego Maradona figure who, as the Argentinian did for Napoli from 1984-1991, would transform United into a serial champion outfit.

Instead, the inverse occurred. The more Pogba was viewed as the saviour the more he seemed to disappoint. It was the law of diminishing returns. United were a shambles on and off the field. Pogba’s performance graph flickered upward only occasionally. Why? Because he was surrounded by mediocrity. In his first Premier League campaign, a fellow midfielder was the