Man Utd news: Graeme Souness warns Man City over Paul Pogba transfer

The Frenchman has become a shock target for the Manchester blue half with Guardiola keen to sign Pogba on a free deal when his contract expires at Old Trafford in July.

Pogba returned to United in 2016 for a then world-record fee of £89m but he failed to live up to his bill at the Theater of Dreams.

The midfielder’s performances at club, while not disastrous, have rarely been as good as for his country.

That suggests there’s more of a problem at the club than at Pogba and if there’s one manager who could iron out the Frenchman’s woes it’s certainly Guardiola.

But Souness believes Pogba is a lost cause and his six years at United have shown he can’t make it in English football.

“You can imagine my reaction when I read yesterday that Pogba was being linked with a summer move to Manchester City,” Sounness told the Times.

‘Amazed covered it. I won’t say it goes against the logic of football because this commodity is rare these days, but such a commitment would go against the way Pep Guardiola likes to run a football team.

“First of all, he wants his players to be ready to put in the hard yards – and the hard yards in the big games when City are up against it. He wants them to have the discipline and selflessness to value their role in the city’s game plan and act accordingly.

“Pogba probably has as much talent, if not more than Bernardo Silva or Kevin de Bruyne, but which two of this trio would you rely on the most to carry out the manager’s orders for the full 90? In which of Manchester United’s big games this season has Pogba appeared?

“Take the two league games against Liverpool – and they don’t get much bigger when you’re a United player. He was sent off at Old Trafford 15 minutes after being substituted on. He had to be substituted off injured after 10 minutes at Anfield and hasn’t kicked a ball out of anger since.

“Yes, unlike Declan Rice, for example, he would be available on a free transfer, but that seems like false economy to me. The simple fact that in the nearly six years of his second spell at United, the demands and intensity of the Premier League have proved too much for him.

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