Jadon Sancho (Out)

[Judas]

Can see him shining at his next club.

Why? Genuinely why? Maybe in a slower lesser league, but I don’t think he’s got it to be a top level player in this country at least.

 

[Alex99]

Why? Genuinely why? Maybe in a slower lesser league, but I don’t think he’s got it to be a top level player in this country at least.

At best he'll be Memphis at Lyon.

 

[VP89]

Why? Genuinely why? Maybe in a slower lesser league, but I don’t think he’s got it to be a top level player in this country at least.

Hes just a freestyle player. Even said that he likes street football in his introductory welcome video. That's dangerous if you can't be arsed to work, of course unless you are Ronaldinho it's fine.

In sanchos case it's evident he has chronic issues in training and that's not only under ten hag.

 

[Ali Dia]

There are a few really good young English players who’d have been much better and infinitely cheaper signings for us with the benefit of hindsight. Eze, Olise, Gibbs-White to name three. Huge transfers rarely work out. Even more rarely from the BL. Doesn’t mean the BL is a bad source of players, just means I would hardly ever spend big money on a BL player unless they were unequivocally brilliant. Haaland, De Bruyne, Lewandowski level.

Otherwise I’d be capping my spend on that league to 40ishM. Wirtz looks a big talent from there, but I’d want a heavily incentivised deal to sign him. Like 40-50m up front and the rest in bonuses. Only BL player I’d spend big on right now, who looks a sure bet for any league in the world, is Musiala.




TBF there were plenty of warning signs that most of us wanted to ignore. Including me. Was signed to play right wing, because that was our problem position, despite everyone knowing deep down he preferred the left. Never, ever possessed any extraordinary physical gifts, in that he wasn’t rapier quick or strong. Just a moderately quick acceleration. If you looked at a lot of his highlights from the BL, he tallied up great numbers taking advantage of space he wouldn’t be afforded in the PL, especially playing for a top team against low blocks. He also had lots of fitness issues at Dortmund, not so much with injuries, but returning from the off season in poor shape, being overweight etc. He was also admonished a few times for poor discipline and time keeping.

These were all things we chose to ignore, because we’ve been desperate for a revival of our fortunes for so long.

He’s clearly better than what he’s shown, but I don’t think he was ever anywhere near as good as any of us thought. A big reason he rarely, ever stood out for England, even at his peak Dortmund confidence days.

Another shit transfer where the club hasn’t done its homework or used a data driven approach. We can file Antony under that category too. Players who were signed under the “eye test”, by popular demand, or due to manager familiarity. I bet if you look at the underlying data of both, in metrics that would apply to the PL, the data would show them to be shit potential transfers.

Three years ago I think it was the Athletic who used a data driven analysis to analyse the gaps in United’s on field performance and then tried to match them with players whose on field metrics matched the needs of the team. The two names that stood out head and shoulders above the rest, in terms of being transformative in how we’d play were Camavinga and Frimpong. Who were both available at very reasonable fees at the time.

It wasn’t too long after we ignored what the data was telling us, by instead signing Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo; that it fell apart. At that point, another data driven analysis by the hugely unpopular Rangnick, suggested we buy Enzo Fernandez (available for <20m), Nkunku, Gvardiol (would’ve cost about what Casemiro cost at that time), Julian Alvarez (25m) and Luis Diaz. So there is quite literally evidence out there in the public domain that we could’ve had a team with Gvardiol, Frimpong, Camavinga, Enzo, Nkunku, Diaz and Alvarez for about what Sancho, Antony, Mount and Varane cost. We also wouldn’t have had to spend 65m on a 30 year old DM either.

And this is just shit in the public domain. Imagine how bad it is behind the scenes. The players we’ve ignored, the recommendations we’ve brushed aside. We set up a whole DoF style system under a proven DoF in Rangnick and then ditched it because of a bad six months as coach and on the advice of the new manager who wanted full control. Which is the antithesis of the whole purpose of having a DoF. This club just doesn’t have any joined up thinking.

Frankly, if United are interested in a player under the Glazers, I just assume that he is overpriced shit at this point.

Really good post which sums up what I’ve been raving on about for years but I do think Sancho and Antony actually fit this profile too. Sancho turned out to be a dud mentally and possibly physically? Antony I think is even worse this season because of all the off the field stuff which you can’t really account for. So yes another massive massive waste but the right age and profile of player just not scouted throughly enough or coming here for the wrong reasons. I felt like Lukaku was pushing to come here because he was pogbas buddy and the same agent and it swiftly fell apart. I felt like Sancho was here to link up with Rashford in a similar way and it all fell down with Ronadlo. I dunno. It’s like we do one good thing that makes sense long term and then make three mistakes that we need to fix and now the money has run out on top of everything else

 

[DJ_21]

Why? Genuinely why? Maybe in a slower lesser league, but I don’t think he’s got it to be a top level player in this country at least.

I don’t think his next clubs gonna be in this country…

 

[The Purley King]

In hindsight, his struggles with England were a massive red flag. After every international break you'd have the whole of Germany up in arms as to why a Bundesliga superstar couldn't get a start. Thing is when he did, you sometimes saw moments but no sustained good performances - actually very similar to United

I certainly thought that was the Southgate effect.
Maybe he isn’t as much of a plum as I thought he was.
Well definitely some plum but maybe not 100%

 

[RVN1991]

I don't think I've seen a single good game of his from the very little I saw from him with Dortmund and England plus his forgettable time at United so far.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Hes just a freestyle player. Even said that he likes street football in his introductory welcome video. That's dangerous if you can't be arsed to work, of course unless you are Ronaldinho it's fine.

In sanchos case it's evident he has chronic issues in training and that's not only under ten hag.

He'd be amazing at professional 5 a-side football. He wouldn't have to do much running, wouldn't have to track back, could basically post up and wait for the ball.

 

[Leftback99]

Pace and physicality are vital in the PL. It's clear he has neither and neither do a lot of our players. Terrible scouting.

My issue at the time was that he wasn't an obvious starter despite many saying we should 'pay whatever it takes' to get him. Rashford and Greenwood were better.

 

[Sandikan]

Used to watch him for England and wonder what the hype was. Just looker a simple pass back to who he got the ball off merchant

But then withall the talk of being a wonder kid and doing great in Germany I was keen on the move.

What a letdown.
You just know with it being us involved we'll end up writing the whole transfer fee off and success will be not having to contribute to the wages.

 

[Sandikan]

Pace and physicality are vital in the PL. It's clear he has neither and neither do a lot of our players. Terrible scouting.

My issue at the time was that he wasn't an obvious starter despite many saying we should 'pay whatever it takes' to get him. Rashford and Greenwood were better.

It was the way we seemingly bought him as a right winger, then realised he's half the player there.

 

[Josh 76]

Used to watch him for England and wonder what the hype was. Just looker a simple pass back to who he got the ball off merchant

But then withall the talk of being a wonder kid and doing great in Germany I was keen on the move.

What a letdown.
You just know with it being us involved we'll end up writing the whole transfer fee off and success will be not having to contribute to the wages.

I've seen him have just one good game. That was in the Euros when England played Ukraine in Rome.

 

[Mainoldo]

What’s his current book value now? I.e. what do we need for FFP.

 

[Fortitude]

The fault absolutely lies with Sancho. No doubt about that. But the underlying mindset was present before you got him. And you should have considered it. I believe players like this can be somewhat guided to success. We saw it with Neymar, for example. Back at Barca he was playing at an unreal level. At Paris he declined rather quickly to the point that I believe some people have forgotten how good he was. Him being so good at Barca is partly down to the leaders the club had at the time. You don't down tools when Pique, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi and others are playing in your team. Or Özil at Real. And if you do, you won't be part of the team any longer, no matter who you are. Sancho never had this positive pressure from his teammates at United, I believe. And this would have been necessary in order to compensate for his lack of intrinsic motivation.
I don't think it is always bad or wrong to sign players like this. But you can only afford this type of players in certain situations. Yours just isn't right for someone like him. But I felt you were so desperate for someone like him, young, English and loaded with potential, that once you knew you could actually get him, you just ignored the warning signs.

I've made this point about Sancho before: he has always been the golden boy and the special one. Criticism and even discipline is less likely to have come his way than for others. He was expected to be a top player, it was a given, and so it proved with his performance level and plaudits at Dortmund and subsequent big money move to a footballing giant.

I don't think he was mentally prepared for the grind or hardship of playing in a suboptimal team where his game was the opposite of catered for. The scrutiny and difficulties of integration wore heavily on him - the abuse from the NT being a catalyst, but then the freefall of how things were in a red shirt sent him spiralling. I'm going to wager this is the first time he's ever faced adversity as a footballer, in that, not only what he was doing wasn't working, but also heavily criticised, this in a harder, more aggressive league where his athleticism and, more particularly, his body strength meant he had to be even faster and swift with the ball.

I never understand when any club gets in a marquee player and then fails to cater to their strengths. Not just in Sancho's case, but literally any club where a huge fuss and expensive outlay is placed on a player. Unless you're dropping these players into an already functional system, what is the purpose of pursuit if you'll change nothing to facilitate them?

Unfortunately, Sancho seems to have the mentality of checking out rather than dialling in. It's hard to tell given the Antony PT situation, but still, incredibly weak of him to literally strike. That's not a normal course of action for a player who is ready and able to handle setbacks.

You mentioned Neymar in your post and I think, like Sancho, he thrives in an environment where things are fun and dynamic, but also highly technical. Unlike Sancho, Neymar is - or better to say, can be - a soloist marvel. He doesn't need his teammates to do things in order to be outstanding, but he'll be damned if he's the one lacking in any technical football, which is where Barca kept him on his toes as ego could be a driver to maintain performance level or be left in the shade in a way he could not be at PSG. I suspect Sancho will always dial in in a technical team - he'll not be the one found lacking in a combination play or those lengthy pass and move chains, but 'rolling up sleeves' and grafting, is most likely where he'll be said to lack appetite and desire, or show disinterest.

Still, he's young and seemingly inordinately immature for his age, perhaps he has an epiphany about the parts of the game that don't appeal to him - this move of his might even be the making of him, assuming he goes somewhere way below his level. He might bust a gut to perform to a level that earns him another shot at a big club, but by then also have the maturity to handle setbacks and hardship... that, or he may just dial out entirely.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Well I doubt he'll want to go to Saudi, so I expect the usual loan struggle with us haggling over how much of his wages we will pay.

Varane on the other hand looks nailed on to go there, so we'll maybe get some proper money in with him.

 

[elmo]

Pogba and Morrison ran him a close 2nd/3rd.

Get rid.

Get better scouts.

Scouts aren’t the problem. It’s the ones making the judgement calls that are the problem. That fraud pretending to be our director of football needs to go. He’s Woodward Mk2 with better pr

 

[Leftback99]

Why would he want to go to Saudi when he can pick up £300k+ a week for a bit of training with the reserves?

We'll struggle to shift him anywhere without paying a high price like Sanchez.

 

[204Red]

You can't really fault Antony's work rate, he tries, he tracks back, he's committed. The output isn't where we want it to be, but he's still young.

Sancho...I don't know what to say about Sancho.

Agree with this... the effort is there.
With Sancho it rarely is.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Scouts aren’t the problem. It’s the ones making the judgement calls that are the problem. That fraud pretending to be our director of football needs to go. He’s Woodward Mk2 with better pr

The scouts should have noted in their reports that he's *only* suited to the left wing, he doesn't track back, he's not a willing runner, the Bundesliga affords him time and space he won't get in the Premier League, and his utility in a team depends on that team catering to his strengths and covering for his weaknesses.

 

[ti vu]

The scouts should have noted in their reports that he's unsuited to the left wing, he doesn't track back, he's not a willing runner, the Bundesliga affords him time and space he won't get in the Premier League, and his utility in a team depends on that team catering to his strengths and covering for his weaknesses.

That's not true for his time at Dortmund. He started and played for a season worth on right wing. Then played very well on the left.

How the DoF, chief of scouting department and manager perceive the adaptability when moving from Bundesliga to Premier League is a different matter. You can have someone like Werner who ticks a lot of boxes on paper, produce eye watering number in Bundesliga yet flopped hard in PL.

In the end the responsibility still stops with key decision makers to "process" the data, info from the report.

 

[elmo]

The scouts should have noted in their reports that he's unsuited to the left wing, he doesn't track back, he's not a willing runner, the Bundesliga affords him time and space he won't get in the Premier League, and his utility in a team depends on that team catering to his strengths and covering for his weaknesses.

And you had access to the scouting reports?

The club scouts a lot, but when it comes to first team purchases, it seems like the scouts opinions are being ignored and it’s up to the manager’s discretion to pick his desired signings.

For what it’s worth, Sancho tracked back more than Rashford does and he could play on both wings for Dortmund until Ole decided that he’s better off playing only on the left for god knows what reason.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

And you had access to the scouting reports?

The club scouts a lot, but when it comes to first team purchases, it seems like the scouts opinions are being ignored and it’s up to the manager’s discretion to pick his desired signings.

Yes, I have all the scouting reports right here on my desk. My point is, if the scouts were emphatic that Sancho was not a solution for United's right side, then you'd expect him not to have been signed.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

That's not true for his time at Dortmund. He played a started and played for a season worth on right wing. Then played very well on the left.

How the DoF, chief of scouting department and manager perceive the adaptability when moving from Bundesliga to Premier League is a different matter. You can have someone like Werner who ticks a lot of boxes on paper, produce eye watering number in Bundesliga yet flopped hard in PL.

In the end the responsibility still stops with key decision makers to "process" the data, info from the report.

Yeah, fecked that up. Meant to write only suited and it came out unsuited.

 

[elmo]

Yes, I have all the scouting reports right here on my desk. My point is, if the scouts were emphatic that Sancho was not a solution for United's right side, then you'd expect him not to have been signed.

And like I said, the club has a track record of just ignoring the scouts and just signing whoever the manager wants for the past 10 years.

The scouts can recommend all they want, at the end of the day, they’re not the one making the decision to sign players.

 

[Fortitude]

Why would he want to go to Saudi when he can pick up £300k+ a week for a bit of training with the reserves?

We'll struggle to shift him anywhere without paying a high price like Sanchez.

Because he can make much more money there.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

I have never been as disappointed by a player. He was so good at youth level and then at Dortmund. Now pre-retirement doesn't even sound outlandish.

He'll be done by 27 but likely earning a £750k PW for five years, straight into "music producer"

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

He was phenomenal at dortmund. I can’t explain how you can look so good at that level and then be so flat. He was explosive there too, hasn’t shown any of thy here.

Rolling the ball into Halaand and him running fifty yards and scoring still counts as an assist.

Bear in mind Mhkitaryan and Kagawa looked amazing in that league.

 

[RikRuud]

A swap deal with Kulusevski or Chiesa would be a touch. However, I feel he could be Saudi bound. Under no circumstances should we be considering a loan.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

There are a few really good young English players who’d have been much better and infinitely cheaper signings for us with the benefit of hindsight. Eze, Olise, Gibbs-White to name three. Huge transfers rarely work out. Even more rarely from the BL. Doesn’t mean the BL is a bad source of players, just means I would hardly ever spend big money on a BL player unless they were unequivocally brilliant. Haaland, De Bruyne, Lewandowski level.

Otherwise I’d be capping my spend on that league to 40ishM. Wirtz looks a big talent from there, but I’d want a heavily incentivised deal to sign him. Like 40-50m up front and the rest in bonuses. Only BL player I’d spend big on right now, who looks a sure bet for any league in the world, is Musiala.




TBF there were plenty of warning signs that most of us wanted to ignore. Including me. Was signed to play right wing, because that was our problem position, despite everyone knowing deep down he preferred the left. Never, ever possessed any extraordinary physical gifts, in that he wasn’t rapier quick or strong. Just a moderately quick acceleration. If you looked at a lot of his highlights from the BL, he tallied up great numbers taking advantage of space he wouldn’t be afforded in the PL, especially playing for a top team against low blocks. He also had lots of fitness issues at Dortmund, not so much with injuries, but returning from the off season in poor shape, being overweight etc. He was also admonished a few times for poor discipline and time keeping.

These were all things we chose to ignore, because we’ve been desperate for a revival of our fortunes for so long.

He’s clearly better than what he’s shown, but I don’t think he was ever anywhere near as good as any of us thought. A big reason he rarely, ever stood out for England, even at his peak Dortmund confidence days.

Another shit transfer where the club hasn’t done its homework or used a data driven approach. We can file Antony under that category too. Players who were signed under the “eye test”, by popular demand, or due to manager familiarity. I bet if you look at the underlying data of both, in metrics that would apply to the PL, the data would show them to be shit potential transfers.

Three years ago I think it was the Athletic who used a data driven analysis to analyse the gaps in United’s on field performance and then tried to match them with players whose on field metrics matched the needs of the team. The two names that stood out head and shoulders above the rest, in terms of being transformative in how we’d play were Camavinga and Frimpong. Who were both available at very reasonable fees at the time.

It wasn’t too long after we ignored what the data was telling us, by instead signing Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo; that it fell apart. At that point, another data driven analysis by the hugely unpopular Rangnick, suggested we buy Enzo Fernandez (available for <20m), Nkunku, Gvardiol (would’ve cost about what Casemiro cost at that time), Julian Alvarez (25m) and Luis Diaz. So there is quite literally evidence out there in the public domain that we could’ve had a team with Gvardiol, Frimpong, Camavinga, Enzo, Nkunku, Diaz and Alvarez for about what Sancho, Antony, Mount and Varane cost. We also wouldn’t have had to spend 65m on a 30 year old DM either.

And this is just shit in the public domain. Imagine how bad it is behind the scenes. The players we’ve ignored, the recommendations we’ve brushed aside. We set up a whole DoF style system under a proven DoF in Rangnick and then ditched it because of a bad six months as coach and on the advice of the new manager who wanted full control. Which is the antithesis of the whole purpose of having a DoF. This club just doesn’t have any joined up thinking.

Frankly, if United are interested in a player under the Glazers, I just assume that he is overpriced shit at this point.

Couldn't have written it better myself. Really good.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Hes just a freestyle player. Even said that he likes street football in his introductory welcome video. That's dangerous if you can't be arsed to work, of course unless you are Ronaldinho it's fine.

In sanchos case it's evident he has chronic issues in training and that's not only under ten hag.

No where near a street footballer.

 

[USREDEVIL]

Keep, he'll come good.
just fecking kidding

 

[Dazzmondo]

With there being a pretty good chance ETH will be sacked before the end of January, I'd rather our new manager at least try to get something out of him before deciding to definitively sell him. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see him succeed at another club if we let him go and for people to retroactively start complaining about why we let him go. The level he reached at Dortmund was extremely high and anyone claiming otherwise clearly didn't watch him.

Think cb, rb, backup striker and probably cm due to our poor summer recruitment are still larger priorities

 

[acid_fuji]

With there being a pretty good chance ETH will be sacked before the end of January, I'd rather our new manager at least try to get something out of him before deciding to definitively sell him. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see him succeed at another club if we let him go and for people to retroactively start complaining about why we let him go. The level he reached at Dortmund was extremely high and anyone claiming otherwise clearly didn't watch him.

Think cb, rb, backup striker and probably cm due to our poor summer recruitment are still larger priorities

Can’t believe people are still writing this utter nonsense stuff. He had so many chances and m never actually showed anything better than Dan James. Everyone with Ten Hag included wanted him to succeed here but it did not worked and new manager won’t change that.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

And like I said, the club has a track record of just ignoring the scouts and just signing whoever the manager wants for the past 10 years.

The scouts can recommend all they want, at the end of the day, they’re not the one making the decision to sign players.

Exactly. We saw the same thing happen with Antony as has been pointed out here multiple times. The scouts warned the club of basically every issue on the pitch we're seeing with him now. Club ignored the scouts and paid a stupid amount of money for him anyway.

 

[ThinkTank@Cafe]

Sancho is not a fighter. Bruno scores winners in shit form. Maguire, Dalot, Bissaka fought for their places. Sancho is a new Pogba.

 

[lex talionis]

To be fair, you could have easily known. He already had issues at Dortmund. The red flags were always there to see if you just bothered to look. So at least your scouts must have known there was risk involved.
Though I admit I would not have expected things to become this bad.

Scouts can and should have looked into Sancho's character. But apart from the obvious such as petulance or off-pitch issues such as excessive partying that's reported by the tabloids or granny shagging how could we have known that Sancho is a douche?

But let's think about that for a moment. There are quite a few top players who have these issues. Wayne Rooney was a notorious granny shagger although I can't recall whether he shagged the granny when he was a teenager with Everton or if that came up later in life. Some could have questioned Beckham's lifestyle choices. Or Rio's. But all three are deserved United legends.

Ryan Giggs...who committed his alleged offenses during his playing career if I understand it correctly, though admittedly only late in his playing career. As a young player, I believe his behavior was exemplary.

Or how about George Best? I'm not old enough to remember his early days at Old Trafford, but as understand his partying was an important part of his life at an early stage of his professional football career.

Then you have players like Ravel Morrison, who tanked his career with poor decision making off the pitch. Harsh perhaps to put him in the same paragraph, but Memphis Depay is another footballer who wasted his gifts. Then Greenwood...who, at least before the Iceland idiocy, could have seen that coming?

It's tricky business to write off players like Sancho who show such incredible promise but whose judgment as a human being may be reasonably questioned.

 

[Canagel]

No chance he goes Saudi. If Memphis could go to Lyon, Barca and Atletico and shine after flopping here there is no reason why he cant make it at another top European club.

And he was a far bigger talent for Dortmund than Memphis was for PSV. There is no reason for him to go Saudi at 23, there will be other options.

Juventus would be a good choice, Serie A will suit him perfectly just like the Bundesliga did.

 

[Isotope]

That is superb post @simonhch

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

No where near a street footballer.

Depending on the street…

 

[antohan]

In hindsight, his struggles with England were a massive red flag. After every international break you'd have the whole of Germany up in arms as to why a Bundesliga superstar couldn't get a start. Thing is when he did, you sometimes saw moments but no sustained good performances - actually very similar to United

It was indeed.

I'm not in the habit of watching BuLi, or Dortmund for that matter. I've seen stats not carrying over so all I had to assess the hype was:

1) Southgate not playing him
2) Rumours of indiscipline, including proof when he broke COVID bubble rules in late 2020

Then we signed him, saw him getting interviewed and looking completely non-plussed about it. Aw bollocks...

Then the Euros started and Southgate was playing this kid Saka ahead of him. Kid looked pretty good in fairness, certainly better than Jadon in his cameos.

I still hoped he would somehow live up to the hype. I didn't care much for Southgate's opinion as Greenwood was not getting a look in either.

Well, turns out Waistcoat has that one going for him as well.