Manchester United have turned down a bid from
Barcelona for
Paul Pogba after the
La Liga club offered €50m (£45m) plus the players Yerry Mina and André Gomes for the Frenchman.
United do not want to sell the 25-year-old midfielder and certainly not for a fee almost half of what they paid for him two years ago. Pogba was outstanding in midfield for France as they won the World Cup and United want to keep him and see him reproduce that form for his club during the upcoming season.
Pogba arrived in Russia after an unconvincing season at club level with the United manager, José Mourinho, leaving him out of the team on a number of occasions. Mourinho, has endured a frustrating transfer window with the club so far signing the Brazil midfielder Fred for £55m, the 19-year-old full-back Diogo Dalot (£19m) from Porto and the back-up goalkeeper Lee Grant (£1.5m).
The Portuguese manager has urged the club to complete more signings before the English window closes on Thursday and would not sanction the sale of Pogba with the squad so thin.
After the friendly defeat against Bayern Munich on Sunday, Mourinho told MUTV: “My CEO knows what I want and I still have a few days to wait and see what happens. The other clubs who compete with us are really strong and already have fantastic teams. Or they are investing massively like Liverpool, who are buying everything and everybody. If we don’t make our team better, it will be a difficult season for us.”
Barcelona are keen to offload Yerry Mina with Everton interested in the Colombian centre-back while André Gomes has failed to have an impact at Barcelona following his €30m move from Valencia in 2016.
United have expressed an interest in the Bayern Munich centre-back Jérôme Boateng but are not prepared to pay the Bundesliga club’s asking price of €60m.