Jack Grealish is Manchester United’s sliding door moment while Jadon Sancho is left out in the cold
Jadon Sancho has been suspended from the first team
Mike McGrat
Erik ten Hag has to decide whether to recall Jadon Sancho for tonight’s League Cup match, which is a key indicator of where the winger stands in the Manchester United manager’s mind.
With the £73 million signing banned from the first team due to a ‘team discipline issue’ and accused of lowering his standards in training, it appears Sancho’s road back is a long one, aged just two since his arrival following a summer transfer saga with Borussia Dortmund. and ahead of Jack Grealish to become United’s most expensive signing of the window.
Since then, Grealish has painted Manchester blue with his two Premier League titles with City in as many years, with his iconic Treble celebrations cementing his status as a footballing treasure. Yet he could easily have worn red for the last two years if United had made a different decision on which young winger to buy.
Aston Villa had negotiated a new contract with a £100m buyout fee in the summer of 2020, marking one of the first times a major Premier League player had such a clause. Now common and used abroad for many years, the fixed price was introduced because Manchester United had an interest in Grealish. He was kept secret and only revealed after signing for City.
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That Covid-hit 2020-21 season saw United’s attention shifted firmly to Sancho. They were similar wingers, both in Gareth Southgate’s plans for the Euros, although Sancho looked more like a long-term right winger, a position United needed. Grealish did his damage from the left. In the end, Sancho cost £27 million less than Grealish.
After the 2021 European Championship, Sancho signed for United and over the course of the previous season it became clear that he had become United’s first choice.
Managers can often hint at their future plans when they see players after playing against them in matches, but there was no such encouragement when United faced Grealish in the Premier League or in a pre-season friendly. United’s eyes were on Sancho.
At the time, Sancho was arguably England’s biggest potential star after making the decision to start his senior career in the Bundesliga. His time at Dortmund was not without incident and he was fined for breaching Covid-19 protocols at a time when restrictions were in place.
According to a teammate, he was never late for practice, although he was rarely the first through the door, because players followed the unofficial rule of arriving at work an hour early to prepare for workouts.
United and Ten Hag helped Sancho last season when he struggled physically and mentally. During the World Cup, he trained alone for eight weeks and spent some time at Dutch amateur club OJC Rosmalen, where he worked with coaches.
This campaign led to a radical change in the relationship between Sancho and his manager. He claimed to be a scapegoat when Ten Hag highlighted his decline in training level. While his teammates lost to Brighton, he was at the club’s training base in Carrington watching the Under-18s team.
United defeated Burnley on Saturday night to end a run of three consecutive defeats. The fans chanted the name of Alejandro Garnacho, their 19-year-old winger who was on the bench. Given Antony’s absence and Mason Mount’s injury, it seems time for a striker to seize his opportunity. The League Cup match against Crystal Palace offers Ten Hag the opportunity to consider these options. He decided not to use Garnacho at Turf Moor because he didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm of a well-balanced game.
“He [Garnacho] was there against Bayern Munich and I think our team played very well,” Ten Hag said. “That’s why I wouldn’t change it tonight because this match was a requirement to maintain this organization. That’s why I wouldn’t change. “I saw that the players were still capable and that the condition was good and that the energy was still there, it was only 1-0. I wouldn’t change it because I also know that at Burnley, at a certain point and in this moment when everything is against us, we saw another goal disallowed.
“I don’t want to say whether it was the right decision or the wrong decision, but again there was a moment when we weren’t on our side. I wanted to avoid it and keep this team, because they did well.”
Manchester United-Crystal Palace
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