Sancho starting to pay back €85m fee, unlike Lukaku & Grealish
Carlo Garganese
- 20 Feb 2022 16:22 GMT
- 4 min read
Much has been said about how the three most expensive transfers of last summer have struggled horribly at their new clubs.
Jack Grealish has just three goals and three assists in 25 games in all competitions for Man City. This is a desperately disappointing return given not only the €118 million fee that was paid for him but given just how dominant Manchester City have been this term.
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City have dominated the Premier League this season – despite their loss to Tottenham - and have scored a whopping 100 goals in all competitions. Grealish has only contributed to six of these in terms of a goal or assist, despite starting 21 times for the most devastating team in Europe.
And things are going from bad to worse for Grealish. He has one goal or assist in five months for City, and his last goal contribution came over two months ago against Leeds on December 14.
As for Lukaku, Chelsea splashed out €115m for him from Inter in the hope that he would be the final jigsaw in their attempt to win the Premier League.
But his numbers of 10 goals and zero assists from 28 games – while nowhere near as bad as Grealish – are way off what is expected given the outlay.
Lukaku hasn’t quite fit into Chelsea’s style of play, who are well off the pace set by City in the Premier League. He then created chaos in December when he gave an interview declaring his unhappiness, criticising manager Thomas Tuchel and saying he wanted to return to Inter.
Lukaku was dropped, fined and while he subsequently apologised, returned to the fold and scored a couple of decisive goals to help Chelsea win the Club World Cup, all is not well for the Belgian.
On Saturday he produced his worst performance of the season in a Chelsea shirt.
He incredibly had just seven touches of the ball in the entire 90 minutes in the 1-0 win at Crystal Palace. This included just two in the first half, one of them from the kick-off. This was a new record for a striker since Premier League records began, and illustrated just how much Lukaku is struggling.
While Grealish and Lukaku’s fortunes are showing no signs of changing, there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel for the summer’s other big-money signing.
Jadon Sancho also had a miserable start to life at Old Trafford after his €85m move from Borussia Dortmund.
He produced just two goals and zero assists in his first 23 appearances and failed to win over Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before the Norwegian was sacked.
He started to get more game-time under interim boss Ralf Rangnick but at the end of January still had no goal contributions for two months and no assists full stop.
February, though, has finally seen him start to emerge as a proper Man Utd-level player. In the five games he has played this month, he has two goals and two assists.
His latest impressive performance came on Sunday when he created the goals for Bruno Fernandes and Fred.
Sancho will end De Gea's monopoly of #mufc's player of the month award. Having an outstanding February and one of the few performing from start to finish. Influential from the left and the right today.
— Samuel Luckhurst (@samuelluckhurst) February 20, 2022
Indeed, Sancho went close to scoring himself and should have had a hat-trick of assists when substitute Anthony Elanga (who did later score) missed a simple chance with only Illan Meslier to beat.
Man Utd won 4-2, meaning they have now picked up successive victories this week and have opened up a four-point lead in the race for fourth spot.
Sancho’s excellent recent form is a key reason why United are now the favourites to take the final Champions League spot ahead of challengers West Ham, Arsenal and Tottenham.
The winger is finally paying back his transfer fee.
