Paul Pogba Deal Emphasises Manchester United’s Huge Post-Sir Alex Ferguson Shift

Manchester United have announced the signing of Paul Pogba. Fans across the globe can now get excited to see one of the best players in the world develop further in United red.

He adds goals, assists and star quality, as has been widely covered. Jose Mourinho could take a while to shift to the 4-3-3 that looks likely to get the best out of him, but that might well happen eventually. But those concerns can wait, for now.

For now there is the excitement. For now there is the hype. For now there is #Pogback.

REUNITED: https://t.co/VFkDJ05zuf #POGBACK https://t.co/y68rpT0dob

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) August 8, 2016

Things have changed a lot at United in the three-and-a-bit years since Sir Alex Ferguson hung up his hairdryer. The specifics of the Pogba announcement were pure, unadulterated modern football. Ferguson would probably have hated it.

He would have hated doing a mega-deal with Mino Raiola, given the manner in which he described their relationship in his book Leading (h/t the Independent). He wrote, “[Raiola] and I were like oil and water. From then on our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus.”

He may even have been a little embarrassed that a player he had not been able to persuade to stay at the club had cost United so much to bring back. Spending £89 million, per Sky Sports, makes Pogba’s departure one of the club’s most expensive ever mistakes, and Sir Alex was at the heart of it. 

The social media and commercial component of the announcement belongs to a world with which Ferguson is not familiar. Indeed, United set up their Twitter account in the immediate aftermath of his departure, and while that may have been a coincidence, it seemed to hint at a new era off the pitch as well as on it.

PogBOOM is coming to Old Trafford.@paulpogba: Welcome home to @ManUtd.#FirstNeverFollowshttps://t.co/UKrEgp7Mcy

— adidasfootball (@adidasfootball) August 8, 2016

Of course, as a 74-year old, the Stormzy video featuring Pogba’s impressive dance moves that Adidas put out would have been pretty culturally alien to Fergie. It was a superb example of marketing in 2016, targeted at an appreciative audience, full of the excitement and cool that comes with signing Pogba.

It felt incredibly authentic—Stormzy is a United fan, and Pogba has been publicly associated with youth culture, Dabbing his way through goal celebrations, making his way through a wide variety of excellent hair cuts and generally turning himself into an icon.

United announced the transfer in the middle of the night in the United Kingdom, another …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com