Manchester United’s £100million signing Paul Pogba will have to wait for his first game back in a red shirt after it was revealed he is suspended for Sunday’s Premier League opener at Bournemouth.
Pogba trained with Jose Mourinho’s side on Friday but won’t be travelling to the Vitality Stadium as he serves a ban for improper conduct.
The Football Association have confirmed his suspension follows an accumulation of two yellow cards in the latter stages of the Coppa Italia at the end of last season.
Pogba’s move back his former club was officially confirmed in the early hours of Tuesday morning but the news he is unavailable to face Bournemouth still comes as a shock.
The 23-year-old picked up a caution in Juventus’ 1-0 Coppa Italia final win over AC Milan in May, his second booking in that competition.
It therefore results in a one-game ban, a suspension which has now been transferred to England.
The FA say Xherdan Shaqiri was put in a similar situation when the Switzerland midielder moved from Inter Milan to Stoke in 2015.
Pogba’s ban means Mourinho will have to wait until next Friday’s game at home to Southampton for an opportunity to pick the player as part of his match day squad.
The Portuguese boss confirmed in his pre-match press conference he had found out on Wednesday that Pogba would not be available this weekend.
On Pogba’s ban, Mourinho said: ‘I don’t speak about him. He’s suspended and I don’t speak about suspended players or injured players.
‘I speak about the ones that are ready to play, so I forget Paul for a few days. On Tuesday, he will be ready to play.’
Expanding further, Mourinho said: ‘I knew the situation with the yellow cards but I didn’t know at that time if an accumulation of yellow cards would bring a player to suspension.
‘I didn’t know if the suspension would be in Italian football, a suspension for the same competition, or the correspondent competition in England, the FA Cup.
‘I didn’t know that, so I was waiting for the decision.’
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