Sancho, Ten Hag and a relationship breakdown that left Man Utd prepared to sell (2024)

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect Jadon Sancho’s banishment from first-team training as of 14 September.

Jadon Sancho is now training away from Manchester United’s first-team squad after refusing to apologise to Erik ten Hag.

The 23-year-old will now work away from team-mates at the club’s academy facilities. Sancho had a public outburst on social media following the Premier League game with Arsenal earlier this month.

Sancho said he had been made “a scapegoat for a long time” after Ten Hag had earlier claimed Sancho wasn’t selected in the matchday squad for the 3-1 defeat due to his performances in training.

The England international was subsequently asked to apologise to the manager but refused to do so, which has now resulted in the club taking action.

He has effectively been banished from first-team training and will not now be considered for selection, beginning with the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion to Old Trafford on Saturday, until there is a resolution.

But just how did we get here?

Sancho had heard enough.

In the aftermath of Manchester United’s 3-1 defeat by Arsenal 10 days ago, manager Ten Hag said the 23-year-old had been left out of the squad owing to “his performances in training”. That Sunday evening, Sancho delivered a withering riposte.

Posting on Twitter, he said: “Please don’t believe everything you read! I will not allow people saying things that is 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!”

In a post that was retweeted more than 60,000 times and viewed by more than 60 million users, the 23-year-old added he would “continue to fight for this badge no matter what”. But a line had been drawn between the player and his manager.

The public fallout came just days before it emerged Sancho’s fellow winger Antony will not be returning to United “until further notice” as he continues to address allegations of assault, which the Brazilian denies.

That development meant Ten Hag had added reason to address the situation with Sancho sooner rather than later, and the England international returned to Carrington on Monday and deleted his “scapegoat” post on Tuesday.

Ten Hag has become increasingly exasperated with Sancho’s punctuality and what he perceived as sluggishness in training. This has also not gone unnoticed by his team-mates, some of whom share the manager’s sense of frustration.

After Sancho’s retort on social media, United were prepared to sanction a permanent exit away from Old Trafford, with the transfer windows still open in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Saudi clubs were told of a £65million ($81.3m) asking price for a player who joined United in July 2021 for £73m. Approaches for him to leave the club, however, were knocked back by Sancho and his representatives. There were no talks about a permanent transfer and Sancho never gave any indication of being open to a move. United declined to comment.

Instead of any potential journey east, Sancho headed west, boarding a flight from Manchester to New York last Wednesday — 24 hours before the transfer window in Saudi Arabia closed. There were no talks with Ten Hag before he granted time off to players such as Sancho who were not required on international duty. Sancho has since been pictured at a birthday party for NBA basketball star John Wall.

AWB & Jadon Sancho celebrating John Wall’s Birthday in their time off. 🇺🇸🏀 pic.twitter.com/ZotS7GGnhw

— 𝗧𝗲𝗻 𝗛𝗮𝗴’𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝘀 ✍🏼🇳🇱 (@TenHagBall_) September 11, 2023

The issues at United date back to last season, when newly-appointed Ten Hag and his coaches tried to get Sancho to arrive on time by setting him a schedule at least one hour earlier than the rest of the squad. This tactic had some initial success, before Sancho fell into familiar patterns.

Sancho joined United from leading German club Borussia Dortmund as one of Europe’s most sought-after young players; someone the Old Trafford side first tried to sign in 2019 became their third-most expensive transfer in the summer of 2021.

The 23-year-old, though, has struggled to make the impact many thought he would.

In 58 Premier League appearances over two seasons, he has scored nine goals and assisted six. In the Bundesliga, he scored 38 times and made 51 assists in 104 matches.

Perhaps his sharp ascent had to plateau at some stage. Sancho had already left Manchester City academy at age 17 and played for Dortmund’s first team when he was part of the England Under-17s’ World Cup-winning squad in the autumn of 2017.

One of his former youth coaches with England, speaking – along with other sources in this piece –on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, described him as a “wonderful boy”. Sancho was seen as a team player; the type of creative, maverick talent that English football has too often shunned.

“Maybe (because) they don’t wear their tracksuit bottoms exactly like everybody else or their laces are undone or they wear headphones, we think they’re a bad person and we start to label them,” said the former England youth coach. “They might be late once or twice, but somebody else might be late once or twice but we’ll forgive the other person because they fit our unconscious bias.”

Despite his impressive form at Dortmund, however, there were questions about the teenager’s attitude in certain areas.

One source close to the German club noted that although “Jadon was mentally tough on the pitch” he could be “quite childish and unprofessional with little things”. Occasionally missing team meetings or oversleeping were viewed as problematic. It got to the point where Edin Terzic, Lucien Favre’s assistant at Dortmund, would personally knock on Sancho’s hotel room door to pick him up before meetings.

When Terzic was placed in temporary charge in December 2020, he instructed staff members to pay special attention to Sancho. Under Terzic, Sancho’s fitness improved and he was brilliant in his final months for the club.

Terzic deliberately put Sancho together with newly-signed Erling Haaland, then 19. Whether it was a rondo drill, in the dressing room, or on the team bus, they were always partnered up. The interim coach wanted the Norwegian’s professionalism to rub off on Sancho.

“Jadon would go through some really good spells and some really bad spells,” said another Dortmund source. “There’s a world-class player there. But he takes a lot of work.”

United, however, felt they could create a better environment for him at their Carrington training centre, where he would want to be at his best every day. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, then United’s manager, had designs on challenging for trophies and hoped that would stimulate Sancho to the fullest.

But there were teething problems from the off — primarily with Cristiano Ronaldo’s arrival at the end of that same summer transfer window.

The No 7 shirt had been promised to Sancho during the club’s attempt to sign him in 2020. But when he signed a year later, it was being worn by Edinson Cavani, who then passed it back to its former wearer Ronaldo, who also expected to play in every United match.

Questions were also raised about the level of pastoral care offered by United after Sancho made the move back to the UK, and a sense that perhaps the Premier League club misjudged how mature he was because he had gone to Germany at such a young age.

On the pitch, there was little respite. Sancho was generally seen as having a good attitude and a high level of fitness, while also being open to taking on board advice on technical aspects of his game, but his first season was blighted by Solskjaer’s sacking in November 2021.

Sancho had something of a renaissance under replacement Ralf Rangnick, but there was tension with Ronaldo over playing style and personality, the extent of which was exposed in a meeting between a handful of players and United’s interim manager in February last year. Ronaldo had arranged the talks and lobbied for Rangnick to switch formations from 4-3-3 to playing two up top — i.e. leaving Sancho on the bench. Sancho, however, had scored two goals in three games from the right wing and Rangnick argued that such a shift in system would stymie his form.

Sancho has dropped away from the conversation around England selection, too. He was last selected by Gareth Southgate in October 2021, and there is little indication he is any closer to returning to the fold.

In a recent interview with The Athletic, his England team-mate Jordan Henderson said: “I know Jadon quite well and I’ve always got on really well with Jadon. He’s a really good lad. When he was with England, he trained well, he wanted to improve, and he listened. I’ve had chats with him one-on-one in terms of improving and getting better and in trying to help him.”

When it was announced in April 2022 that Ten Hag would be United’s next permanent manager, a cultural reset inside the dressing room was needed — and the former Ajax head coach was going to be the one to drive it through high standards and discipline.

Sancho started last season positively, scoring three times in eight games, and was a regular fixture in Ten Hag’s starting XI.

But in October, his campaign came to a standstill. A month later, Sancho had turned off his social media accounts.

He was sent to the Netherlands to work with coaches trusted by Ten Hag and left out of United’s warm-weather training camp in Spain during the World Cup break in December.

A United statement released at the time read: “Jadon Sancho is continuing his individual training programme as part of a process to get back to his highest level. The club is fully supporting him in this.”

On December 14, Ten Hag went public with the difficulties surrounding what he called Sancho’s “mental fitness” — without, as it turned out, the permission of the player or his representatives.

Ten Hag’s words caused concern behind the scenes at Old Trafford. It was not seen to be the most appropriate way for a manager to describe a player in public. The Dutchman believed he was being supportive of Sancho and there was a sense it would have been difficult to explain the player’s extended absence as injury-related when that was not the case. United felt that by not providing a reason, speculation would have rumbled on.

Sancho returned to the matchday squad on February 1 for the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg against Nottingham Forest (United had already won the first leg 3-0 at the City Ground), coming off the bench in a 2-0 home victory. His Premier League comeback followed a week later, when he scored the equaliser to secure a 2-2 draw at home to Leeds United.

“He’s all the way back,” said Ten Hag. “We know he’s a magnificent player. I think consistently he can have a big impact. But he has to work hard. He is a brilliant footballer and if he can invest in the right levels he can be outstanding.”

Sancho made 25 more appearances before the end of the season, including the campaign-ending FA Cup final defeat by Manchester City. But Ten Hag was disappointed with his performance that day at Wembley, replacing him with Wout Weghorst in the 78th minute.

When United’s manager sat down with the media during their pre-season trip to the U.S. in July, he was asked whether Sancho had overcome the problems that led to him missing just under five months of football.

“In this moment, he is in a very good vibe,” Ten Hag said. “He decides how he is, how his mood and vibe is. He has a lot of energy, we have all seen that from the moment he came back. He wants to enjoy football and be successful.

“I saw many games at Dortmund and Jadon is not such a different player in Dortmund as he is here. But also for him, he has to get more consistency in his performance but he has to do it at a higher level.”

(Top photos: Getty Images)