Manchester United's club record signing Paul Pogba, who joined the club for a fee of around of £100 million from Juventus this summer, could not participate in the club's opening game of the season against Bournemouth last weekend due to a ban that had been carried over from the Italian league. However, the wait is now over as Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho confirmed that the dynamic central midfielder will feature in the club's Friday night game against Southampton at Old Trafford later on today.
Jose Murinho spoke to Manchester United's official channel MUTV ahead of the game. He said, "We played against Leicester [in the Community Shield] with players with less training than him and we saw that match [won 2-1] as a way to improve them and accelerate the process,". He added, "With Paul, it's a bit the same -- not one single minute of any preseason match, but almost two weeks of work with us, sometimes with the group, sometimes separately, and the condition is OK to play some minutes." However, at the pre match press conference, Mourinho further shared his thoughts on how he would be using Pogba in Firday night's game, "He has adapted really easily because he knows the club, knows everybody. He has no need to have time to adapt, but he'll need time to build his condition and his understanding of how the team plays and how he'll fit in with that." He also said, "We are not going to play with five at the back because with Juventus he played with five at the back. We are not going for dramatic changes. But, yes, there are changes in details in the game where we will have to change."
United are chasing their first home win of the season against Southampton and the addition of Paul Pogba to the midfield will definitely add the sort of dynamism that the team often lacked last season.
[Quotes from ESPN]
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