Inside Sancho and Ten Hag’s public fallout with Man Utd future on the brink

Jadon Sancho chats to his fans as he live streams on Instagram

The struggle to unearth the real Jadon Sancho has been a long and difficult process since his arrival at Old Trafford two years ago.

It has involved arms around the shoulder, private encouragement from many departments and concessions made on and off the pitch to a player struggling with expectation.

After Ten Hag’s public criticism at the Emirates elicited a furious response from the player on social media late on Sunday the fear now stalking corridors at Carrington is that that struggle could have reached its end point.

Far from unearthing the star they believed they were getting when handing over £73million to Dortmund in 2021 Sancho’s outburst – accusing Ten Hag of lying – has revealed a player incapable of ever finding enough within to reach the heights expected of him.

Tensions are understood to have been building for several weeks over Sancho’s efforts, culminating in him not making the 20-man matchday squad for the trip to Arsenal.

“On his performance on training we didn’t select him,” said Ten Hag bluntly. “You have to reach the level every day at Manchester United.”

Two hours later Sancho fired back. “I will not allow people to say things that are completely untrue. I have conducted myself in training very well this week.

“I believe there are other reasons for this matter that I won’t go into, I’’ve been a scapegoat for a long time which isn’t fair!”

That Sancho has failed to hit the heights expected at United is not in question with 12 goals and six assists in 82 appearances – a period when has been earned around £30million over a little more than two seasons.

United feel they have been hugely supportive of his battle giving him eight games off last season between October and February to deal with “mental and physical issues” when he was struggling for motivation.

Ten Hag, who earned praise for the way he handled him, believed that a strong pre-season in the States indicated a corner had been turned.

But his efforts this season have again failed to impress leading to his decision to publicly call out the winger and demand more of a player on £300,000 a week.

Sancho’s response will cost him dearly for all that United refused to confirm whether he would be fined or disciplined when flat-batting queries yesterday.

Getting back into the manager’s selection plans will mean accepting he needs to work harder, which given he maintains he is, looks a barrier.

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Such criticism of a manager from a player traditionally does not end well for one of the parties and it will not be Ten Hag who suffers.

Yet there will be a measure of frustration that it has come to this given the promise he showed in the Bundesliga before his move back to England where he scored 50 goals and produced 64 assists in 137 games.

Sancho had form for bad timekeeping both at Manchester City where he was a youth contemporary of Phil Foden and at Dortmund where he was once fined £86,000 for being late back from an international break.

He has also fallen foul of Gareth Southgate who left him out at Euro 2020 after insisting his training was not good enough.

He would not be the first player to be a ‘bad’ trainer but it is incumbent on those who are to produce when pitched into competitive action and Sancho has not shone.

The fear at United is that in challenging Ten Hag’s integrity he may have just given up the chance to put that right.

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