Manchester United ace Paul Pogba has named "exceptional" former Arsenal counterpart Abou Diaby in a list of central midfielders that he believes are better than him.

The 32-year-old is currently a free agent after being released by Marseille last year due to the same injury problems that plagued his decade in North London.

Despite Diaby's stop-start career, though, Pogba insists that the 16-cap France international is among an elite band of players who can claim to be more talented than him.

"There is [Andres] Iniesta, who is having an amazing career. Then there are the [Toni] Krooses, [Luka] Modrics of this world; David Silva, [Kevin] De Bruyne, Yaya Toure, even Abou Diaby, who many forget about," he told Canal+.

"He is an exceptional box-to-box player. Sadly he had a lot of injuries. He was someone who when he was at Arsenal he was exceptional.

"We forget but he was exceptional. For France he was great. Abou Diaby is a player I watched and respect a lot. I won't forget him. I learned a lot from him."

Diaby was restricted to just 180 appearances for Arsenal in all competitions, scoring 19 goals.