Paul Pogba - the ultimate wasted talent: Man Utd flop should've won a Ballon d'Or but four-year doping ban means he'll be remembered as one of the game's saddest stories

The overriding emotion surrounding Thursday's news of Pogba's suspension is sadness.

One of the game's most gifted players may never play top-flight football again - and even if he does, he will never perform anything close to the level he achieved during his early years at Juventus or during his time with the France national team.

However, there is no getting away from the fact that in Turin right now there is an unmistakable air of relief.

Because it was clear even before the news broke of Pogba's failed drugs test that his best days were behind him, his colossal salary having long since become an albatross around the neck of an already cash-strapped club.

Back in the summer of 2022, Juve had been understandably overjoyed at managing to sign Pogba from United on a free transfer for the second time. The midfielder had jumped at the chance to start over. In reality, though, it was merely the beginning of the end of his time at the top.

Pogba continued to be plagued by injury issues. And the terrible thing was that many people believed that he only had himself to blame. In a desperate - and futile - bid to represent France at the 2022 World Cup, he decided against undergoing knee surgery at the start of August 2022, which proved a catastrophic call, as the "conservative therapy" he instead opted for ultimately did nothing but delay the requisite operation - and recovery time.

Coach Massimiliano Allegri continued to support Pogba in public but his frustration was obvious. The fans were hardly happy either. By Christmas, Pogba still hadn't made his 'second debut' for Juventus and yet he nonetheless felt compelled to post a picture of himself on a ski slope during the festive period.

At best, it was ill-advised, a clumsy failure to read the room. In the eyes of the fans, though, it screamed of a lack of respect - one of the dominant themes of Pogba's career.

Indeed, Sir Alex Ferguson was enraged by the way in which Pogba conducted himself during his Old Trafford exit in 2012.

Granted, part of that was down to the infamous super-agent Mino Raiola, whom Ferguson despised. The Scot admitted that they were like "water and oil" and took an immediate dislike to one another. In that sense, a parting of the ways was perhaps inevitable.

Ferguson was renowned for exerting a father-like influence on his players - which was never going to fly with Raiola, who was in possession of a prodigious talent with an expiring contract. There was more money to be made in finding a new club for his much-coveted client.

However, it's worth remembering that Ferguson also said of Pogba specifically, "I don't think he showed us any respect at all, to be honest."

Pogba was still only 19 at the time but such accusations were nothing new, given he'd left his two previous clubs, Torcy and Le Havre, in equally acrimonious circumstances.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a young player wanting to play for a bigger or better club and while it's hard not to wonder how much a teenage Pogba might have benefited from another year of Ferguson's tutelage, particularly in terms of his temperament, the biggest mistake the Frenchman made was not leaving United - but returning.

It may have been the right move in Pogba's eyes, but it was very much the wrong time.

Firstly, Juve were still on the rise. They managed to reach the 2017 Champions League final without him - but who knows what they could have accomplished if they'd held onto a prime Pogba?

Secondly, Pogba wasn't rejoining Ferguson's United - but Jose Mourinho's, and while the outspoken Portuguese publicly supported Pogba throughout their first season together, the pair's relationship deteriorated rapidly in 2018, ultimately contributing to the manager's dismissal in December of that same year.

For a short while under Mourinho's far less authoritarian successor, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, it appeared that Pogba might belatedly realise his potential. The Norwegian even claimed, "There is an agenda against Paul but he is a top, top bloke. He is a great professional, there have never been any problems and he has got a heart of gold."

And yet Pogba - and his agent - continually disrespected United with talk of transfers and new challenges away from Old Trafford.

United's big regret, of course, will be that they didn't cash in their most expensive ever signing in the summer of 2019, because his value depreciated rapidly thereafter.

Pogba may have remained a superstar on social media, but he was a flop on the field. Even when he was fit - which was never for very long - he was a cheap knock-off of the player that so often flourished in a France shirt, much to the bewilderment of legendary Premier League midfielders like Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira.

Ronaldinho had claimed that Pogba was so talented that he could play anywhere but that was proven very much not to be the cause by his wildly contrasting fortunes for club and country. As had been the case at Juventus, Pogba excelled for France in a set position on the left-hand side of central midfield with great players alongside him, such as N'Golo Kante. He didn't have anything like the same standard of support at Old Trafford and showed himself to be utterly incapable of inspiring those around him. It was obvious that he was no leader.

There is an argument that he suffered more than most on account of the constant state of chaos that engulfed Old Trafford after Ferguson's retirement but Pogba came to personify United's problems. He was their biggest waste of money, the Instagram influencer who was all style and zero substance.

Consequently, the supporters came to despise him. The Stretford End was telling him to "F*ck off" long before he finally did.

In a further damning indictment of his dramatic decline, none of Europe's elite came calling when his United contract expired. Pogba was available for nothing and yet no truly top team wanted anything to do with him. Even on a free transfer, he just wasn't worth the risk. And so it proved.

There was talk of Juve renegotiating his contract because of his incessant injury issues as early as December 2022. Then, after one brief period of availability, he was dropped by Allegri for a Europa League clash with Freiburg for turning up late for a team meeting.

By that stage, sympathy was giving way to despair. Pogba no longer appeared physically or mentally cut out for the demands of professional football - a perception that understandably upset him.

"I want to make [the critics] eat their words," he told Al Jazeera in September. "They can talk bad about me but I will never give up. I want to show them I'm not weak.

"Football is very beautiful, but it's cruel. People can forget you. You can do something great – the next day, you're nobody."

Pogba will never be nobody, though, not least because the day after that interview aired, it was announced that he had failed an anti-doping test.

Even for that reason alone, there's no chance of Pogba being forgotten, because he's now destined to be remembered as one of the game's saddest stories, a cautionary tale of the effects of poor life choices: The World Cup winner and the wasted talent.