Andre Gomes and Paul Pogba. It seems a fanciful pair of players to compare two years on from their respective moves in the 2016 summer transfer window Manchester United signed their former youth team star from Juventus in a world record move that priced Barcelona out of a deal. They had been interested in signing the Frenchman too. Andre Gomes was supposed to be a cheap alternative.Fast forward to the present day and one player is a world champion. The other is being treated, at best, as a makeweight in potential deals to bring more Premier League players to Barcelona. At worst, he is viewed as a write off, if not an experiment that was never likely to pay off in the first place.
Pogba’s own two year period hasn’t been without set-backs and disappointments, of course. Under Jose Mourinho, he has endured testing spells on and off the pitch.For such a talented and complete player with the attributes to do it all he has often struggled to show it on as consistent a basis as his critics demand. Even his advocates blame his managers, at club and international level, or their systems and the other players selected alongside him for preventing the Frenchman from showing how good he truly is.Despite this, he remains a footballer billed as one of the most impressive individuals in his position in the sport – even many of his detractors will grudgingly admit that the 25-year-old has it in him to live up the hype.Now he has a World Cup winner’s medal. Gomes actually won the European Championship with Portugal ahead of Pogba and France in 2016. That hasn’t been enough to cast a positive light on his own difficulties in Barcelona following his switch from Valencia that same summer.
The case could be made that Gomes is another player who could fit the bill as a replacement for Mousa Dembele at Spurs. When he was starring as a player of genuine promise at Valencia, his combination of physical and technical qualities made him a resilient figure on the ball, much in the same way that Belgian can be for Mauricio Pochettino’s side. Good luck getting the ball off from Dembele once he gets going.Having just signed Lucas Torreira, Arsenal may not need him. They already had Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka, with Ainsley Maitland-Niles coming through, although if the Welshman cannot agree a new contract at the Emirates, Gomes could be one answer to the question of how to replace him in the squad. It wouldn’t be an ideal solution