IT’S fair to say this column prefers a top-quality French bargain much more than, erm, Manchester Un*ted do.

The also-rans of Mancunian football have reportedly gone bonkers in a bid to buy a way back into Champions League football by splashing out £105,000,000 (yes, a world record one-hundred-and-five million of your English pounds) on French footballer Paul Pogba and agreeing to pay him a mind-numbing £290,000 a week, figures that simply don’t bear thinking about for fear the world’s gone even madder.

We, on the other hand, have found a French export priced £14 but currently on offer for £11, and one which, with all due respect (and with a bit of luck where most football fans are concerned), will provide much more pleasure.

Okay, Pogba may have been a silky, leggy, all-encompassing midfielder at habitual Italian champions Juventus, where he was fondly known as Il Polpo Paul (Paul the Octopus), but his performance in the Euro 2016 final against Portugal was more of a damp squib (squid?).

Conversely, Les Caillottes Sancerre is a top-class performer every time - fresh, elegant and bright and with a finish that puts the misfiring goalless French finalists to shame.

For £290,000 each week, you can get 20,714 bottles of the stuff too, or 26,363 if you snap them up at the current discount price, which is on till August 9.

The initial outlay this week would get you no fewer than 9,545,454 bottles, if Sancere could produce enough of course.

Grown in the upper reaches of the Loire Valley in northern France, where the terroir is rich in small limestones known locally as “caillottes” (hence this wine’s name), this drink is made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes and is an elegant dry white, bright with the SB characteristics of this region - ripe citrus fruit, fresh grassy aromas and a refreshing zippy finish.

And people say Pogba is stylish.

You can have this on its own as an apéritif, alternatively it goes great with shellfish, chicken or goat's cheese. Chill it an hour for best final scorelines.

Elsewhere on offer at Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, is La Patrie Cahors Malbec, down from £7 to £5.50 until August 9.

This is more Marouane Fellaini than Paul Pogba, however, in that it does a job but at the same time is more notable for its elbows and hair. Akin to Sergio Aguero or Lionel Messi at football, it also kind of offers proof that Argentinians in many ways do Malbec better these days than the Europeans.

It is full-bodied like the lanky Belgian fouler but not nearly as elegant as his expensive new Un*ted team-mate.

Still, simply be like Fellaini and don’t think too much about things, and all might work out well. Just enjoy throwing it down with a midweek beef pasta or a roast lamb on Sundays, before plodding to the box and elbowing someone off the settee.