It Was Hard To Bring Pogba Back From Juventus’- Mourinho

Jose Mourinho admits it was difficult to convince Paul Pogba to make the switch back to Manchester United from Juventus in a world-record €110 million deal.

The United boss revealed that he faced huge competition from “another big club” in completing the most noteworthy transfer of the summer.

Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid were interested in Pogba but were unwilling to match the fee the 20-time English champions were offering to Juventus.

“Oh! It was hard to convince him,” Mourinho told Goal. “I had many [conversations] on the phone, lots of SMS.

“I think he was getting one in the morning from the manager from another big club and one in the afternoon from myself. I had to try hard to convince him to choose us instead of the other one.”

United may be without top-level European football this season – with Mourinho instead leading his side into the Europa League – but the 53-year-old believes that both the Champions League and Manchester United themselves are suffering because the three-time winners are not competing in it.

“The Champions League without Manchester United is not the Champions League and Manchester United without the Champions League is not Manchester United,” he said. “So this is the first big step.

“But to get back to the Champions League we need to do well in the Premier League, so the first step is to recover the self-esteem, which I think we are doing.”