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Patrick Evra has asserted that Manchester United only re-signed Paul Pogba to humiliate Sir Alex Ferguson.
Pogba left Man United in 2012 under Alex Ferguson but was later signed by Jose Mourinho in the summer of 2016 for a fee of £89 million.
However, his return to Old Trafford did not go exactly as planned because of his patchy performances throughout the club's disastrous six-year second stint.
The France international rejoined Juventus on a free transfer in 2022 before testing positive for the drug DHEA in August last year and was issued a four-year ban from football.
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Evra on Pogba’s return
Evra, who played alongside Pogba for Juventus and the French national team, feels that Pogba's move back to Manchester United was more of a publicity act than a genuine football move.
Speaking on The Overlap, he said, "Manchester United brought Paul Pogba back because they wanted to humiliate Sir Alex Ferguson.
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"I told Paul to not go back because he wanted Real Madrid and Madrid wanted him, but Florentino Pérez didn’t want to pay the money. His agent called United, and he signed with him without telling me.
"The club was happy because they were selling shirts, you know the kids love Pogba – it was more commercial than anything on the pitch.
"It’s not about being a big fan of Paul Pogba, it’s about being his big brother. It’s about protecting him. I was harsh with him when I joined Juventus. One day, he said to the press, ‘I deserve to win the Ballon d’Or .’
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"I was like, ‘Wait a minute, did you ever hear [Frank] Lampard saying that, did you ever hear [Andrés] Iniesta, Xavi or whatever?’ And, I’m like, ‘Calm down, you’re not ready for that.’
“With Paul, you see him like that, but inside, he’s not that strong and he’s protecting himself, and that’s why I tried to protect Paul, because sometimes it [the criticism of him] was unfair.
"People were talking more about his hairstyle or his dancing than judging him on the pitch. Even sometimes he wasn’t playing, they were saying, ‘United lost because of Paul Pogba'."
But despite Evra's claim, sources close to Pogba insist he never expected or stated he deserved to win the Ballon d’Or.
He also rejects many of the claims made by Evra within the interview, which are either a distortion of the truth, or wholly inaccurate.
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