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Erik ten Hag has finally broken his silence on Jadon Sancho’s return to the Manchester United first-team last week, describing the 24-year-old as a “good player” and revealing “we have drawn the line” following their long-standing feud.
Sancho has not featured for, nor trained with, the senior squad since a dispute with Ten Hag in September 2023. The winger was omitted from the travelling squad to play Arsenal with the Dutch manager citing poor performances in training as the reason.
Sancho, in response, took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to dispute this, instead inferring Ten Hag was lying about the situation and describing himself as a “scapegoat”. As a result of this inflammatory post, the winger was exiled from the first-team squad and told an apology was the only route back into the fold at Old Trafford.
Sancho refused to do so and was made to train with the youth team over the first half of last season. Eventually, a loan move back to Borussia Dortmund – whom Sancho left to join United in 2021 – was agreed in the January transfer window.
The loan move proved a success as the 24-year-old winger rediscovered some of the form which made him such a coveted player in Germany. He helped Dortmund to reach an unlikely Champions League final, delivering a brilliant performance in the semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain, but Die Schwarzgelben fell at the final hurdle to Real Madrid.
Dortmund officials were acutely keen for Sancho to remain at the Signal Iduna Park beyond his loan, but United’s asking price – believed to be £40 million – proved too costly for the frugal German club.
As such, with the impending deadline of pre-season training looming at the beginning of July, Old Trafford executives were forced to make a decision on Sancho’s short-term future. A meeting was held at Carrington between the winger, Ten Hag, and senior figures at the club which was described as “positive”.
Shortly after, it was announced Sancho would be returning to first-team training and a line had been drawn under the disagreement with his manager, though no apology was believed to have been made.
Now, following United’s disappointing opening game of pre-season in the 1-0 loss to Rosenborg yesterday, Ten Hag has given his first public statement on the resolution with Sancho.
The Dutchman said, “As we said, we draw the line. Manchester United need good players and Jadon is a good player. We have drawn that line and we move on.”
Though there was speculation that this move was simply designed to maintain Sancho’s value as much as possible in the transfer market (what team would pay a premium price for a player not even training?), these words by Ten Hag appear to offer Sancho a direct path back into the fold under him.
The ongoing struggles of Antony, who simply has never looked like a Premier League player, let alone a Manchester United one, and the fact both Alejandro Garnacho (left-wing) and Amad Diallo (number ten) may hold stronger futures in other positions, means the right-wing remains a source of concern for United.
If, and it feels a big if, Sancho was able to consistently produce the type of performance he did against PSG, this return of the moody video game-playing prodigal son may just prove one of INEOS’ earliest masterstrokes.
United will always need “good players” after all, especially when the alternative is Antony.
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