What Really Happened Between Jadon Sancho And Erik Ten Hag

FourFourTwo

Following Man United's 3-1 defeat to Arsenal, the main story surrounding the club has been the exclusion of Jadon Sancho and the subsequent social media bust-up that's taken place between the player and Erik Ten Hag. But what's actually gone on between the two? And what can we learn about their relationship from similar stories that have followed Sancho's entire career.

Transcript

00:00 *intro*

00:02 *intro*

00:04 Hey, how's it going everybody? Adam Cleary from 442 here and right, Jaden Sancho.

00:09 How the f*** did it get to this?

00:12 Now of course as you well know with any situation like this there's a lot of stuff currently being said about it

00:17 which isn't necessarily completely factual and a lot of very important stuff about it

00:21 which just isn't really being said at all.

00:24 So if you will now join me, not physically I can't reach you it's just a metaphor

00:28 we will go back through the entire history of Jaden Sancho

00:31 look at all the little things that happened that led us to here

00:34 and then we'll sort of figure it out.

00:37 *ding*

00:39 Okay so to start if you will join me in the time machine

00:43 oh it's very time machine-y

00:45 woah we are going all the way back to summer 2017.

00:50 Despacito is currently in the charts

00:52 I am working for a wrestling promotion and for some reason hitting people with stone cold stunners

00:56 and Jaden Sancho is about to depart Greater Britain.

01:00 Now two years prior to this of course Sancho arrived at Manchester City from Watford

01:04 for a fee that could get anywhere up to half a million pounds

01:07 and was put on a fast track into the first team.

01:10 But here as we are in July 2017 Sancho is refusing to sign a new contract.

01:16 Despite being just 16 at the time Sancho feels there aren't enough guarantees

01:21 over his playing time in the deal he's been offered

01:23 and not only stalls on the contract but refuses to train.

01:27 Man City have a sneaking suspicion that he may be trying to force a move.

01:31 Fast forward one month to August 2017 and wouldn't you just know it

01:35 Jaden Sancho joins Borussia Dortmund for a fee of 8 million pounds from Manchester City.

01:40 Now his time in Germany is considered an overwhelming success

01:42 he plays 137 games, he scores 50 goals, he gets 57 assists

01:47 and all the while Manchester United are watching the situation with a very keen eye.

01:52 Essentially the story goes that Man United had had their beady little eye on Sancho

01:56 even when he was at Watford but were secretly quite pleased about his move to Dortmund

02:01 because A) they probably couldn't guarantee him the kind of first team football he wanted either

02:05 so they couldn't move in and get him at that point

02:07 but more importantly B) they didn't see Dortmund as the kind of team they couldn't tempt him away from.

02:13 If he did develop the way they thought he was going to develop they could then go in and buy him.

02:17 And while as we've said Sancho's time in Dortmund was an outright success

02:20 it wasn't without its problems.

02:23 In October 2017 Sancho is demoted to Dortmund's reserves.

02:27 Peter Stoga in temporary charge of Dortmund at the time punishes Sancho

02:30 for turning up late to training on several occasions by demoting him out of the first team squad.

02:36 Jump to March 2018 and both Jaden Sancho and Phil Foden were dropped from the England under-19s side

02:42 for a game against Latvia after they both turned up late to a team meeting.

02:47 Again certainly in the England set up punctuality is seen as a very important thing

02:51 and even at youth level if you can't turn up on time for the meetings or the briefings or the trainings

02:55 or what have you then you simply won't play.

02:58 We then jump ahead to October 2019 and Dortmund boss Lucien Favre punishes him on several occasions

03:03 including dropping him to the reserves for games against Barcelona and Borussia Mönchengladbach

03:08 for returning late from England duty for not being back at the club on time.

03:14 Anyway though November 2019 now and in a crunch tie with Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich

03:19 Dortmund find themselves 4-0 down and Jaden Sancho is hauled off in disgrace after just 36 minutes.

03:26 He then goes on to say publicly and stop me if this sounds familiar

03:30 that he feels he is being scapegoated by the club for the performance

03:34 and feels they should have protected him more as their player.

03:38 Now it was around about this time that Sancho himself did an interview where he talked about these problems.

03:43 He said his timekeeping was an issue because he had a problem with his sleeping.

03:46 Now precisely what the nature of this problem was he didn't specify whether it was a medical thing

03:50 or just simply him going to bed late but he did also say at the time he was big on playing Call of Duty

03:55 with several Manchester United players including Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba

04:00 and this is again where the rumours linking him with the move to Man United started to develop.

04:05 All of his friends are there.

04:07 Now as somebody who was rather extensively playing Call of Duty at this exact point in human history

04:13 let me tell you I had a problem with my sleeping as well

04:16 but that's because I was stopping up till 3 in the morning doing this.

04:20 I've got C4!

04:22 Which helicopter? I've got one C4. Which helicopter?

04:24 The one outside the gas.

04:27 Go on get your pal in it. And your other pal.

04:29 Wait till he's right in the air.

04:31 Wait till he's like above the air.

04:33 Yeah!

04:37 Team life!

04:38 June 2020 now and Sancho ends up getting fined by the German FA for breaking lockdown rules in order to get a haircut.

04:46 His teammate Emre Can exacerbated with these continued problems even says in the press

04:51 he just has to be smarter and grow up with things like that.

04:54 Now obviously it's worth pointing out while all these small little incidents are happening

04:57 is football is absolutely off the chain.

05:00 He's a guaranteed starter for Dortmund, he's one of the brightest talents in the world

05:03 and he's now a regular fixture in the England squad heading into the European Championships.

05:07 However at the start of those championships in June 2021

05:10 reports start to suggest that he's reacted petulantly to not being in the starting 11

05:15 for England's opening game against Croatia.

05:18 And if you cast your minds back here, despite the fact England went all the way to the final

05:21 had a fantastic tournament, they had a really slow start.

05:24 They struggled against Croatia, they drew against Scotland, they only got that one goal I think

05:28 in the final group game and everyone was clamouring for him to throw Sancho in from the start

05:33 and yet Gareth Southgate resisted the temptation to do that.

05:37 Subsequently it has been suggested that the reason for that was because he was very unimpressed

05:41 with the way he was training while he was at the time lobbying to get a move from Dortmund

05:45 to Manchester United.

05:47 And that's something that there is the tiniest little whiff of evidence for

05:50 because Sancho did start one game in that tournament when Saka was injured against Ukraine

05:55 he came into the starting 11 and he played really well

05:57 and Southgate in the post-match asked about his selection

06:00 said that he had started to train really well now that his Man Utd move had been wrapped up.

06:06 And like the rest of you I have entirely suppressed what happened in the rest of that tournament

06:11 so that's the end of that bit.

06:13 Alright so we are now in July 2021, the 23rd of July 2021 to be precise

06:19 and Jadon Sancho is finally unveiled as Manchester United's big new signing of the summer.

06:24 And this feels like such a big deal at the time because having just finished second in the Premier League

06:29 Manchester United have gone out and bought a player they have been watching for six years

06:34 and have a really good plan for how to use.

06:37 Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had propelled Manchester United up the table with this 4-2-3-1 system

06:42 with Bruno Fernandes the central and creative linchpin in the 10.

06:46 Plan was in the three attacking positions ahead of him to field Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood and Jadon Sancho

06:53 three young, hungry, technically gifted, athletically explosive players

06:57 who could each play in multiple positions in that front line.

07:01 Rashford was comfortable on the left or as the nine, Greenwood was comfortable as the nine or on the right

07:06 and Sancho could play on the right or on the left.

07:09 This meant that not only could you set them up in any number of different ways

07:12 but you could change the way you had them playing across the course of the game.

07:16 It was going to be a nightmare for opposition teams to try and defend against.

07:20 And if they really wanted to go for it they had Edison Cavani who could come in as the nine

07:24 allowing the other three to string across in the attacking roles

07:28 and Bruno Fernandes to play as the most ambitious pivot you've ever seen.

07:32 Now given everything that's gone on since, the Mason Greenwood stuff especially

07:36 this does feel like an awfully long time ago

07:39 but at the time it did seem like a really smart and really exciting way for Manchester United to set up.

07:45 The problem is it lasted a grand total of about five weeks.

07:50 A mere three games into that season and before this system had even been used once

07:55 Cristiano Ronaldo returned to Manchester United in the shock transfer move of that summer.

08:01 And that was a huge problem.

08:04 Because while Ronaldo still undoubtedly still had a lot of ability

08:08 he was the complete opposite kind of player that Manchester United had spent two years building this system around.

08:14 It had meant that at least one of these three players was always sacrificed to accommodate Ronaldo

08:18 and the two that did play weren't only no longer able to be positionally flexible

08:22 but they had to do his running for him.

08:25 And as a result it tended to be Sancho who was the most technically gifted

08:29 but probably also the least athletic of the three who usually made way.

08:33 He flitted in and out of games, he flitted in and out of the squad

08:36 he contributed three goals across his entire debut season

08:39 and Manchester United dropped all the way from second to sixth.

08:42 But the following season with Eric Ten Hag clearly seeing Ronaldo as more of a peripheral figure

08:46 Sancho started brightly.

08:48 He was in the first eleven for all but two of their first twelve Premier League games

08:52 and he headed towards the World Cup looking to be in good form.

08:56 But after getting ill about two weeks before the season took its break for the World Cup

09:00 Sancho then missed out on the squad entirely

09:03 and didn't reappear for Manchester United until the middle of February.

09:07 That was an absence of nearly three and a half months.

09:10 Now what exactly the reasons or the thinking behind this enforced break were

09:14 aren't widely known and to be honest they're not really anybody's business

09:18 but certainly at the time the reports were that Ten Hag had sent him to the Netherlands

09:22 to train with amateur club OJC Rosmullin to recover both his physical and mental fitness.

09:27 Jump to February 2023 and he makes his return to the Manchester United first team

09:32 coming off the bench against Leeds United to grab a dramatic late equaliser.

09:37 The club then only lose four more Premier League games that season

09:40 and they are astonishingly the only four games where Jadon Sancho doesn't start.

09:46 And that then brings us to the summer just gone.

09:48 Things finally looked like they had turned around for Jadon Sancho at Manchester United.

09:52 He was definitely in his manager's thinking for the first eleven.

09:55 We hadn't had any reports of bad timekeeping or bad behaviour or bad attitudes for a very long time.

10:01 This finally felt like it was going to be Sancho's season.

10:04 Except it just hasn't been.

10:06 He wasn't selected in the starting eleven for any of Manchester United's three opening fixtures.

10:11 And then we get to the Arsenal game and he's not even in the squad at all.

10:15 Now Ten Hag when quizzed about this simply just said that Jadon on his performances in training

10:20 we did not select him.

10:22 You have to reach a level every day at Manchester United and we can make choices in the front line.

10:26 So for this game he was not selected.

10:28 And the thing is this didn't even feel like that big a deal during the match.

10:32 Like Ten Hag famously dropped Marcus Rashford last season for being late for a team meeting

10:37 just as part of club discipline.

10:39 Then Rashford came on, put in a performance, scored the winning goal

10:42 and everybody just kind of forgot about it.

10:44 They drew a line under it. It was just seen as good squad management.

10:48 And this at the time just kind of felt like the same thing.

10:51 But then of course immediately afterwards Sancho took to his social media pages

10:55 and posted the now infamous following statement.

10:58 Please don't believe everything you read. I will not allow people saying things that is completely untrue.

11:03 I have conducted myself in training very well this week.

11:06 I believe there are other reasons for this matter that I won't go into.

11:09 I've been a scapegoat for a long time, which isn't fair.

11:12 All I want to do is play football with a smile on my face and contribute to my team.

11:16 I will continue to fight for this badge no matter what.

11:20 Now what precisely the reaction to this internally at Manchester United has been since is not strictly known.

11:26 But reports today are that Ten Hag is going to come down extremely hard on Sancho

11:32 as he sees this as a challenge to his authority.

11:35 I mean effectively he's called his manager a liar in the wake of an absolutely galling defeat.

11:41 So it's probably not so much that like the s**t has hit the fan,

11:45 but more just imagine that there's s**t everywhere

11:48 and Sancho's trying to point the s**ty finger at Ten Hag.

11:52 But the club are going no, no, no, that's not, that isn't him.

11:55 That's you, that one. You've done that.

11:57 So Sancho either now needs to like clean all this s**t up himself

12:02 or just leave the s**ty room because it's horrible.

12:08 Good metaphor that Adam, top stuff.

12:10 And then you add to that all the other stories that are coming out

12:13 that apparently some of his teammates at Manchester United

12:15 and previously some of his teammates at Dortmund

12:17 weren't all that impressed with him both in terms of his attitude and just his personality.

12:21 And he's not really well liked and you can already start to see

12:24 the mechanisms of the football PR machine starting to turn.

12:28 Maybe all that's true. Maybe he wasn't that popular.

12:31 Or maybe it is a club that's anticipating having a problem with him

12:35 already starting to brief that he is in fact the problem

12:38 and not the way they run their business.

12:41 Who knows?

12:42 But what do we actually know about all of this?

12:44 What is clearly and definably true?

12:46 Well we do know that Jadon Sancho, despite his immense talent,

12:51 is a player who has struggled with his timekeeping,

12:53 has struggled with his levels of professionalism,

12:55 and that has got him into trouble with both his teammates and his coaches in the past.

12:59 And we also know that Eric Ten Hag and his big shiny head

13:02 do not stand for that at all.

13:04 He will drop players if their standards fall anywhere short of what he expects.

13:09 And you combine point A, fireworks, with point B,

13:14 man with matches, and...

13:16 and every single thing else about his levels of popularity,

13:20 what goes on behind the scenes, the friction between him and the manager,

13:23 a potential move, this and that and the other,

13:25 is just at the minute, noise.

13:28 The only two people who can paint you a fuller picture than that

13:31 are Jadon Sancho, who is pointing at Eric Ten Hag and saying he's the problem,

13:35 and Eric Ten Hag, who is pointing at Jadon Sancho and saying that he's the problem.

13:41 So... yeah, that's it. That's literally all there is.

13:45 But if you'd like to speculate wildly about it in the comments below,

13:48 please feel free to do so.

13:50 We'd dearly love to hear what you think about these things.

13:52 But keep it sane now, remember,

13:54 and please do subscribe to 442 while you're here on YouTube.

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14:02 [laughs]

14:03 [beep]

14:04 Get me on Twitter @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y,

14:06 and if you've got £5.99 burning a hole in your back pocket,

14:09 which you do, the brand new 442 is in stores now.

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14:15 But until the meantime, that's your lot.

14:17 I've been Adam Cleary, I'll see you later. Bye!

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