Paul Pogba Deal Emphasises Manchester United's Huge Post-Sir Alex Ferguson Shift

Manchester United have announced the signing of Paul Pogba. Fans across the globe can now get excited to see one of the best players in the world develop further in United red.

He adds goals, assists and star quality, as has been widely covered. Jose Mourinho could take a while to shift to the 4-3-3 that looks likely to get the best out of him, but that might well happen eventually. But those concerns can wait, for now.

For now there is the excitement. For now there is the hype. For now there is #Pogback.

Things have changed a lot at United in the three-and-a-bit years since Sir Alex Ferguson hung up his hairdryer. The specifics of the Pogba announcement were pure, unadulterated modern football. Ferguson would probably have hated it.

He would have hated doing a mega-deal with Mino Raiola, given the manner in which he described their relationship in his book Leading (h/t the Independent). He wrote, "[Raiola] and I were like oil and water. From then on our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus."

He may even have been a little embarrassed that a player he had not been able to persuade to stay at the club had cost United so much to bring back. Spending £89 million, per Sky Sports, makes Pogba's departure one of the club's most expensive ever mistakes, and Sir Alex was at the heart of it. 

The social media and commercial component of the announcement belongs to a world with which Ferguson is not familiar. Indeed, United set up their Twitter account in the immediate aftermath of his departure, and while that may have been a coincidence, it seemed to hint at a new era off the pitch as well as on it.

Of course, as a 74-year old, the Stormzy video featuring Pogba's impressive dance moves that Adidas put out would have been pretty culturally alien to Fergie. It was a superb example of marketing in 2016, targeted at an appreciative audience, full of the excitement and cool that comes with signing Pogba.

It felt incredibly authentic—Stormzy is a United fan, and Pogba has been publicly associated with youth culture, Dabbing his way through goal celebrations, making his way through a wide variety of excellent hair cuts and generally turning himself into an icon.

United announced the transfer in the middle of the night in the United Kingdom, another indication of cultural change. It is hard not to think that the timing was designed to maximise global, rather than local impact. If that is the thinking, it seems a savvy move.

The club's local support will be deeply emotionally invested anyway, so the need to play on their loyalties is less obvious. Globally, the impact of a marketing campaign like this can presumably move the needle in a more obvious way. Being a United fan just got a lot cooler.

Adidas' deep involvement gave the whole thing the feel of a brand launch—Pogba at United as a marketing concept. United themselves joined in the hype machine, making an introduction video that would have been at home in the WWE.

The target audience was clear: a younger demographic who can bask in the reflected credibility and gloat to their friends who support clubs who did not just sign Paul Pogba.

And again, it was a far cry from Sir Alex's approach to the revelation of a new signing.

This, incidentally, is not a knock against the current approach. The current approach may be heavy on the commercials, but it is hard to deny that it is a lot of fun. It is merely to point out just how much United—and football—has changed since 2013.

This summer's transfer-market activity is also ample evidence that the shift away from the parsimony of the early period of Glazer family ownership is over. United have broken the British transfer record for the second time in three years.

That is an approach that was once familiar to Sir Alex, of course. Roy Keane, Juan Sebastian Veron and Rio Ferdinand were all examples that he was entirely prepared to spend big in relative terms. He was also prepared to adapt to the sky-rocketing inflation associated with those fees.

Gary M. Prior/Getty Images

With the exception of the signings of Dimitar Berbatov and Robin van Persie, the latter part of Sir Alex's career was much less free-spending, though. Perhaps he had changed his philosophy, or perhaps the financial realities of a leveraged buyout and its effect on the club's balance of debt had a more serious effect on transfer budgets than he would let on.

But parsimony is most definitely over now. The marketing furore around their latest acquisition makes complete sense given the scale of investment. As well as bringing United success on the pitch, part of his role is obviously to act as a commercial figurehead.

Between he and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the star-power meter at Old Trafford is now off the scale. And the Pogba deal has been given the Hollywood treatment.

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

In retrospect, it now becomes clear that much of the material emerging from Adidas over the past month or so has essentially been a trailer for a transfer. As well as breaking the transfer-fee record, that must set some kind of unique precedent.

All of which would seem thoroughly alien to Sir Alex.

Or maybe that does not give him quite enough credit. After all, one of his greatest strengths was his capacity to evolve and adapt to new eras of football. He knew Cristiano Ronaldo needed different treatment than Bryan Robson had a couple of decades earlier.

Mourinho's predecessor Louis van Gaal became locked into a dogmatic approach to how the game should be played. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger appears to be struggling to adapt to the new paradigm in the transfer market. Sir Alex, though, never stopped changing—a remarkable thought given how self-possessed he was and how much success he had.

ARMANDO FRANCA/Associated Press

Perhaps, were he still in charge, he would be learning to Dab and tweeting #Pogback as we speak.

He made mistakes in spite of his success, of course, and Pogba was no doubt one of them. United have now corrected it, as they look to build the first great team since his retirement. The glitz around the announcement may be new, but buying the best players in the world in order to try to win things was always Sir Alex's way.

It is a different club now. But while the Stormzy video might have come as a bit of a shock to the system to him, Ferguson would have felt a pang of the familiar when Mourinho said his expectations for the season were to try to win every game.

The accoutrements of the club might be different, but ultimately, the underlying principles, the attempts to bring about success on the pitch remain.

While the DNA he left behind has evolved and changed, and the club's public face looks different, Ferguson's inheritance looks clearer than at any time since he finally decided to call it a day.

Quotations obtained firsthand where not otherwise stated.