Graeme Souness slams ‘stinking attitude’ of Paul Pogba as he could’ve become ‘one of the greats’
Graeme Souness has hit out at ex-Manchester United flop Paul Pogba *again* as the Frenchman had a “stinking attitude” during his time at Old Trafford.
The World Cup winner returned to Man Utd in 2019 as the Premier League giants paid around £89m to re-sign him from Juventus.
“I was frustrated with him…”
Pogba failed to live up to expectations at Old Trafford as his attitude was often questioned by onlookers, with his best performers often coming while on international duty for France.
The midfielder’s natural ability cannot be questioned but his desire was rightly up for debate before he returned to Juventus on a free transfer upon the expiry of his Man Utd contract in 2022.
His second spell at Juventus has been disastrous. He missed much of the 2022/23 through injury and it has recently confirmed that he has received a four-year ban for doping after testing positive for testosterone.
Souness was one of Pogba’s biggest critics during his time at Man Utd but he apparently “took no pleasure” in the 31-year-old getting banned as he “had all that attitude” but “had a stinking attitude”.
“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,” Souness told The Telegraph.
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“I take no pleasure in what has happened…”
“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.”
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