23 January 2024 , 19:16
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Graeme Souness has shown he has no plans to stop talking about Paul Pogba despite the French midfielder being long gone from the Premier League, arguing a World Cup win marked the start of the player's downfall.
Souness made no secret of his attitude towards Pogba during the six years Manchester United 's record signing spent at Old Trafford. The £89.3m star blew hot and cold in his second spell with the club, eventually rejoining Juventus on a free transfer in the summer of 2022.
Injuries had limited the 30-year-old's involvement in Turin, while keeping him out of the 2022 World Cup as Les Bleus reached the final. He had played just twice this season when a fresh setback arrived, with Pogba failing a drug test.
United's struggles this season without Pogba have prompted some to look back on the last few years at Old Trafford. For Souness, this means attempting to pinpoint exactly where things went wrong for one of his frequent targets, though there appears to be some sympathy for the player.
Pogba won the World Cup after just two years back in Manchester, starring in France's victory over Croatia in the final, but Souness argued that success may have harmed his progress at club level. "He had the equipment to be the best midfielder in the world," the 70-year-old told talkSPORT.
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"I saw a young man that was going through emotions a lot of the time, and that frustrated me. With that physique and that technical ability, he just did not have the right attitude to make him a superstar.
"The worst thing that happened to him was winning a World Cup, because he could turn and say, 'I am a World Cup winner'. I think at that point, it was him going backwards."
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Paul Pogba starred in France's run to World Cup glory in 2018 (Getty Images)Souness' comments come just four months after Pogba asked questions about the treatment of footballers in the media. The 91-cap French international was speaking after a tell-all interview with Dele Alli, defending the former England star before trying to contextualise some of the treatment athletes receive.
"We're going through a lot, we grew up to play football, we didn't grow up to get ready for the media," Pogba told Al Jazeera. They will bring you up so high, then bring you down to destroy you. I didn't learn to get ready for the negative talk, the criticism - I just came to play football.
"I was with my friends playing, then you get to a first team, you play and score goals, get all the praise, hailed as the best young player. Then, things happened in his [Dele's] life and they're destroying him, no one is asking if he's okay, they don't care."