Owen says two Man United ‘flops’ would have thrived at Man City or Liverpool

Former Manchester United striker Michael Owen believes Paul Pogba and Angel Di Maria would have thrived in the Premier League had they joined either Liverpool or Manchester City.

Pogba, who is poised to leave United when his contract expires next month, returned to Old Trafford in a club-record £89million deal in August 2016 and struggled to ever live up to his enormous price tag. He has never been consistent enough and his performances have never displayed the characteristics of a player that cost almost £100million.

Di Maria, meanwhile, joined United from Real Madrid two years earlier, putting pen to paper on a five-year deal in August 2014. He was snapped up for £59.7million and left Old Trafford less than 12 months later.

He made just 32 appearances for United, scoring four goals and grabbing 12 assists. He will go down as one of the club’s most uninspiring signings in recent history.

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United have continued to make mistakes when it comes to recruitment, but it is often Pogba and Di Maria who dominate the discussions on the matter because of the transfer fees paid for them. And for former United striker Owen, he believes they both would have done far better if they had joined one of United’s main Premier League rivals.

“Look, over the years, when United sign these great players, like Di Maria or Pogba, nobody was saying ‘that won’t work’,” Owen told FootballJOE. “Everyone was saying ‘what a great player’, and you can bet your bottom dollar that if those players went into the Liverpool or the Man City team, they would be great players.

“But it’s like when things go right, everything goes right. In the Liverpool team, you get swept along with great confidence, a great team, everything is flowing. At United, where everything is going wrong, it’s very difficult for your levels not to sink as well.”

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