5 reasons why no club will break the transfer record this summer

Last year saw Man United shatter the transfer record to sign Paul Pogba for £89m

Last summer saw Manchester United obliterate the world transfer fee record by paying £89m to bring Paul Pogba home from Juventus. The monstrous fee surpassed the £85m paid by Real Madrid to Tottenham in 2013 for Gareth Bale – that is if you believe Bale’s fee and not Cristiano Ronaldo’s – also paid by Real Madrid, in 2009 – was the record-holder. However you look at it, it’s an insane amount of money.

This season has already seen wild rumours flying around about the world’s biggest clubs making world-record bids for some of the football world’s fastest rising stars, but could we see Pogba’s record fee eclipsed so soon? Personally, I don’t think so and here are five reasons why.

#1 No club needs to make a statement this year

With their signing of Pogba – and Zlatan Ibrahimovic – United were looking to make a statement

Since Sir Alex Ferguson left Old Trafford in 2013, Manchester United have hardly set the Premier League on fire, let alone Europe’s top competitions. Finishing in seventh place in 2013/14 left them out of the Champions League picture and despite returning to the top four in 2014/15, last season saw them slip downwards once again.

They remain arguably the world’s richest club, however, and part of the reason they paid so much money for Pogba, in my opinion, was to make a statement, that despite a downturn in their fortunes on the pitch, off the pitch they wield as much power as they ever have done. What better way to prove that than to break the world transfer fee record?

Sure, Pogba is a great player, but realistically he hadn’t done quite as much as the likes of Bale, Ronaldo, and in the past Zinedine Zidane to really warrant such a fee. Juventus knew United would pay whatever it took to bring Pogba to Old Trafford and so they simply took advantage.

This year though, none of the biggest clubs in the world have slipped quite like United and so none of them really need to make the kind of statement that breaking the record sends. After all, if you’re successful on the pitch, you don’t really need to flex your financial muscles too much.