Liam Brady has claimed that if Paul Pogba had been at Arsenal as a youngster, he never would have left.

Speaking in a lengthy interview with the Sunday Times [£], the Arsenal legend and former head of youth at the club, said he couldn’t understand why Sir Alex Ferguson, who had a great track record for trusting youngsters, didn’t use him more.

“Arsène has always been prepared to put young players into the team”, Brady said. “He made my job easy, he made it successful. At the moment Chelsea and Man City have the best young players in the country but will any of them get to play in the first team? Who have Chelsea brought through? John Terry, that’s it.

“If I’d had the resources that Frank Arnesen had at Chelsea and did the same job at Arsenal, I wouldn’t have lasted long,” Brady continued. “Arsène put Ashley Cole in the team at 17, Jack Wilshere, Cesc Fabregas, Kieran Gibbs, there were so many. You have to be careful with young players. Look what happened with [Paul] Pogba.

“United had him and didn’t play him, which was unusual for Alex Ferguson because he had a good track record with young players. But if Pogba had been at Arsenal, he would still be at Arsenal.”

Arsenal have been linked with a move for the Juventus man but those rumours are nothing but pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’s being claimed that his agent has been in talks with Barcelona recently and they certainly are a club daft enough to pay the reported £80m transfer fee, not a bad return for a player Juve picked up on a free.

While there’s no denying the talent of the Frenchman, £80m is just stupid money that only one or two clubs in the world would pay.

Arsenal aren’t one of them.