Paul Pogba has revealed that he wanted to leave Manchester United in 2019 because he felt the club wasn’t progressing. The French midfielder eventually departed on a free transfer in the summer of 2022, six years after rejoining for a then-record fee of £89 million.
Pogba views the 2018-19 season, during which he was United’s top scorer, as his best at the club. However, despite the positive atmosphere under new manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who had replaced Jose Mourinho, he still wanted to move on.
In an exclusive interview with Mail Sport’s Sami Mokbel, Pogba, now 31, shared: “I’ve never told anyone this before. The year Jose left and Ole arrived was my best season at United, but after the final game, I told Ole and Ed Woodward that I thought it was my last year and I wanted to leave.”
He continued, “I was 27, and things weren’t going the way I wanted. I gave my best, but I didn’t see the club progressing. Manchester City and Liverpool were getting better while we weren’t. Ole understood and said he would discuss it with Ed.”
Pogba had already made up his mind to leave, but when he returned for pre-season, he remained professional. “I spoke to Ed about leaving, but he blocked it. I didn’t want to play for United anymore, but I had to stay professional. Mentally, I wasn’t fully there, and then the injuries started.”
After returning to Juventus, Pogba managed only 12 appearances due to injuries before failing a drug test in August 2023. At age 30, he was handed a four-year ban for testing positive for testosterone following Juventus’s first game of the 2023-24 season against Udinese. However, after an appeal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced his ban to 18 months, meaning he could return to training in January 2025 and resume playing in March.