Paul Pogba has revealed that he wanted to leave Manchester United in 2019 because his heart wasn’t in it – but he was blocked from leaving.
The Frenchman eventually left Old Trafford on a free in the summer of 2022, six years after he had returned for a then-world record £89million fee.
Pogba believes that the 2018-19 season when he was United’s top scorer was his best at the club, but he wanted to go despite the positivity surrounding Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s new regime after Jose Mourinho’s December 2018 exit.
The midfielder, 31, has bared his soul in a warts-and-all exclusive interview with Mail Sport’s Sami Mokbel, his first with a UK newspaper since his football ban was reduced.
‘I will tell you something I’ve never told anyone,’ Pogba teases.
Paul Pogba has revealed that he did want to leave Manchester United in the summer of 2019
He told Mail Sport that his ‘head’ was already out of the door but he remained ‘professional’
Former chief executive Ed Woodward blocked him from leaving the club, Pogba claims
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had been willing to let him leave but he only departed three years later
‘The year Jose went and Ole came, it was my best season at United but after the last game I told Ole and Ed Woodward that I thought it was my last year and that I wanted to leave.
‘I was 27 back then, it didn’t work out the way I wanted. I gave my best but I didn’t see the club going upwards.
‘Manchester City and Liverpool were better than us and they were improving. Ole said yes (to me leaving) and that he would talk to Ed.
‘My head was already that I wanted to go but I came back for pre-season because I wanted to be professional.
‘I spoke to Ed to try to make a move but he blocked it. I didn’t want to play for United anymore but I had to be professional.
‘Mentally I wasn’t there and then I got the injuries.’
Pogba’s stunning admission gives insight into his mindset with the team where the prime years of his career did not go the way he would have wanted at club level.
In 2019 he made no secret of his desire to join Real Madrid – right up to deadline day he was ‘favouriting’ Madrid-related tweets on social media. He had also called it a ‘dream’ to play for the Spanish giants in March of that year.
Pogba’s Mail Sport interview is his first with a UK outlet after his football ban was reduced
Pogba is poised to leave Juventus and will be free to play again from March 2025
He went on to join Juventus once again, but only managed 12 appearances due to injury troubles before a failed drugs test in August 2023.
In February Pogba, then 30, was slapped with a four-year ban from football after failing a drugs test in August 2023 – potentially a career-ender.
He tested positive for testosterone after Juventus’s first game of the 2023-24 season against Udinese, and was given his hefty punishment by an anti-doping prosecutor’s office in Italy.
However, as Mail Sport exclusively revealed earlier this month, the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced his ban to 18 months after an appeal, meaning he can play again in March 2025, with training permitted from January.
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