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Erik ten Hag has taken to publicly criticising Jadon Sancho as a last throw of the dice, says Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs.
The Red Devils boss stated after leaving Sancho out of his matchday plans for a Premier League clash with Arsenal that the England international had been overlooked due to poor performances in training. Sancho responded with a statement of his own, in which he claimed to be being made a scapegoat, but this is not the first time that he has been dropped or had questions asked of his application behind the scenes.
Former United played and coach Giggs has told the Webby & O’Neill YouTube channel of why the man calling the shots at Old Trafford feels the need to generate a response from his underperforming £75 million ($94m) winger: It looks like Ten Hag has tried everything with Sancho, really. It seems like it was the last throw of the dice – 'I've tried everything, let's call him out publicly and see how he reacts'. When he came to the club, I was actually a fan. I thought he could get better, he could improve, which he's not really done in the short space of time he's been at the club. For me, he always made the right choices in that final third, which is rare for a young winger.
But it just hasn't happened and he's sent him away to get fit, he's tried him in different positions and, for me, calling him out publicly is the last straw or the last thing to try to get the best out of Sancho. The player can react and think 'Right, I'll show him, I'll show the manager what I'm capable of' or he can sulk and he probably won't get anywhere. So it's up to Sancho now. I know a lot has been made of his training and for me, with my experience of United when I was a player, training was harder than the games. So you have to have those performances in training, to get yourself on that pitch on a Saturday, so he's got to improve, I think that's the bottom line.
With Ten Hag now on his case, Giggs hopes Sancho’s team-mates will also start to call him out if he his attitude in training becomes a cause for concern. The ex-Wales boss added: If that is true, that the training performances haven't been good enough, then you're not going to play on a Saturday. I keep banging on about it, but you can only get it back on the training ground – build your confidence, build your fitness, build your physicality and do everything you can. Don't give the manager any excuses to call you out. When the manager calls you out, I don't know if it's the end, but he's probably at the end of his tether where he's thought 'Right, this is the last thing, see if this works'. So we'll see.
I think it goes deeper than that though, I think it's a responsibility to the dressing-room as well, for his team-mates, Sancho, to make sure that he is performing every day in training. We drove each other every day. Sometimes the manager didn't have to do a lot, because the standards were already there in the dressing-room and the training pitch. The players have got to take responsibility as well. If your team-mate isn't pulling his weight – if that is true – then they have to call him out. They have to make sure he does perform, because he's got ability, we've all seen that. There's only one person who can change it.
Sancho joined United from Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2021 and was expected to become a talismanic presence for the Premier League heavyweights. He has, however, struggled for form and fitness – with just 12 goals and six assists recorded across 82 appearances in all competitions.
Source: goal
