Sancho must quit Man Utd circus show to save his career

Stefan Bienkowski

• 18 Jan 2022 15:34 CST
• 6 min read

Jadon Sancho’s doomed spell at Manchester United went from bad to worse on Saturday when the line-up for the club’s Premier League clash with Aston Villa was revealed.

The young England international could perhaps stomach being dropped for a name like Cristiano Ronaldo or a fan favourite like Marcus Rashord, but Ralf Rangnick had gone one step further and underlined the winger’s ineffective season to date.

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Instead of Sancho getting a spot in the starting XI, the Man Utd manager had given 19-year-old winger Anthony Elanga a rare opportunity to impress.

A cold sweat must have surely rolled down Sancho’s spine on the day. The forward’s poor start to life at Old Trafford had become a full-blown nightmare and now the club were simply moving on to the next, exciting young talent.

Crowded out with no room to breath

Sancho’s troubles at Old Trafford started just seven weeks after he finally made his long-awaited move to Manchester.

Following a difficult Euro 2020 with England, Sancho would have undoubtedly been looking forward to settling into a starting role for his new club and getting back to winning games. Then along came Ronaldo.

Indeed, the Portugal international’s somewhat unexpected arrival completely shook up Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team and added an automatic starter to an already overcrowded attacking line up.

Instead of Sancho being able to learn the ropes while playing off the industrious Edinson Cavani, he has instead had to play second fiddle to a largely immobile and extremely selfish Ronaldo.

And that’s when he hasn’t been entirely out of the team. Solskjaer’s doomed tenure as manager was defined by the Norwegian’s best efforts to keep star players happy, which often meant Paul Pogba pushed out wide into Sancho’s position or the aforementioned Portuguese striker being afforded top billing each and every weekend.

At times it often seemed as though Solskjaer simply had no need or interest in playing a player that the club had just forked over €80 million to sign just a few months prior. Sancho arrived at Old Trafford expecting attention and some form of instructions in order to fit into his new club. It seems as though he got neither.

To his credit, Solskjaer has tried to start Sancho in most games but rebuilding a winger’s confidence from the ground up in the middle of a tortuous league campaign is a fool’s errand and Rangnick, for all his faults, is no fool. His patience with Sancho will only go so far, as made clear by Saturday’s starting XI.

With Anthony Martial, Edinson Cavani and Jesse Lingard looking likely to leave in the summer, Sancho may yet get his time to shine at Old Trafford next season. But this first year at Old Trafford would have troubled Sancho deeply. In no time at all he’s gone from hero to zero and if he’s not careful he’ll just become another overly-paid ornament on the Man Utd bench.