Erik ten Hag finally speaks about Jadon Sancho’s return to Man United

Erik ten Hag finally speaks about Jadon Sancho’s return to Man United

Manchester united Boss 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.

Since September 2023, Sancho has not participated in senior squad training or games due to a disagreement with Ten Hag.

The Dutch manager gave the winger’s lackluster training results as the reason he was left off the traveling team to play Arsenal.

In response, Sancho disputed this on X (previously known as Twitter), implying that Ten Hag was fabricating the circumstances and characterizing himself as a “scapegoat.”

Following this post, the winger was kicked out of the first team and informed that the only way back to Old Trafford was to accept an apology.

When Sancho rejected, he spent the first half of the previous season training with the youth squad.

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.