'A stinking attitude' - Graeme Souness gives brutal reaction to Paul Pogba's four-year doping ban as outspoken pundit insists Juventus & France midfielder 'didn't work hard enough' to fulfil potential

Souness has been a regular critic of Pogba during his time as a television pundit. The former Liverpool star, who won five league titles and three European Cups during his playing career, has now spoken out again about the former Manchester United midfielder, who is currently serving a four-year ban from football after failing doping tests.

He told the Telegraph: “With Pogba, I was frustrated with him because I saw someone who had all that talent, all that physical prowess that you see on a magnificent athlete, but had a stinking attitude. I could talk now for 10 minutes on it but the bottom line is, he didn’t work hard enough. The worst thing that could have happened to him was winning the World Cup as a young man. That put him firmly in a great big comfy armchair. He was no longer up for doing the hard yards, he thought it was all about him doing clever eye-catching things on the football pitch.

“Every time I played I had one thought in my head: I’m going to be better than the guy I’m playing against. I’m going to have a better day than he does. And the starting point for that is working harder than him. I don’t think Paul Pogba ever had that attitude. It was all about showing how clever and cute I can be. It would have been very easy to play against him because he never worked on you. He didn’t stop you playing.

“I take no pleasure in what has happened to him because he was an extremely talented young man who had everything to be remembered as one of the great midfield players in world football. But he won’t be remembered for that unfortunately. He will be remembered for being banned for drugs and being a near-miss.”

It remains to be seen if Pogba will play again as he will be just shy of his 34th birthday when his ban ends, though he is set to appeal the verdict in the Court of Arbitration of Sport. The midfielder famously won the World Cup with France in 2018 as well as Serie A titles with Juventus and the Europa League with Manchester United. Yet his playing career looks set to end in disgrace as he serves a lengthy ban, with the general consensus being that the supremely-gifted footballer never managed to fulfil his immense potential.

Pogba has opened up on his struggles recently and claimed he has "never learned and grown so much in one year." He has also been offered hope his career may not be quite over, with France boss Didier Deschamps admitting he has spoken with the 31-year-old and hopes he can find his way back out onto the pitch in the future.