How sweet life must have seemed when Jadon Sancho was posting summer snaps with new Manchester United and England team-mate Marcus Rashford.
There will be no Instagram posts from the England camp next week. At least not from Sancho.
He probably knew what was coming. Gareth Southgate included Sancho in the last England squad for continuity reasons and to let him know that he is highly regarded in the national set-up. To pick him again would have been charitable but hardly practical.
As understanding and sympathetic as Southgate is, he has games to win and a squad replete in attacking talent. Sancho has become an unusable bauble no matter the £73m price tag.
Indeed, the inflated transfer value and the high wages that come with it distort the picture, according to Southgate. What we have here is a young player still in development. Sancho’s rerouting via the Bundesliga with Dortmund, like Jude Bellingham’s, might have been necessary but was not sufficient. He returned to a far more demanding Premier League still a young man. A few seasons’ exposure to the Champions League was useful augmentation but in the context of his development little more than embroidery.
Interestingly Dortmund are dialling back on the idea of Bellingham being the next big thing in the English midfield and a must-have accoutrement of Liverpool. Sure they would be thrilled to make another packet out of their English investment, and will when the time comes, but with the player’s welfare at heart Dortmund could not in all conscience contemplate a sale so soon into his second season with the club.
Bellingham’s request not to be considered for the October internationals on grounds he needed a rest would support that proposition. We have seen how long it has taken Naby Keita to adjust to the Premier League after arriving at Anfield from Leipzig three years ago, and he was 23 when he made the move.
Sancho is still only 21. A hundred appearances in a Dortmund shirt does not necessarily a man make. It was the 18-month pursuit by United and the chunky numbers it took to persuade Dortmund to sell that coloured our perceptions. It is a feature of the way the Premier League exercises its economic power that it can splash more than £70m on a prospect. Sancho’s failure to break into the United first team is perhaps telling us, and him, that is what he is, a jewel still to be polished.
England squad in full
Goalkeepers: Sam Johnstone, Jordan Pickford, Aaron Ramsdale
Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ben Chilwell, Conor Coady, Reece James, Tyrone Mings, Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, John Stones, Kyle Walker
Midfielders: Jude Bellingham, Jordan Henderson, Declan Rice, Mason Mount, Kalvin Phillips, James Ward-Prowse
Forwards: Tammy Abraham, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Raheem Sterling
Southgate is of that view. “He has got to the top very quickly. That is how people would view a lot of our young players. But what is the top? A lot of these boys are still learning the game, still learning how to be professionals. In Jadon’s situation adapting to a new club and a different style of play. We cover them in attention. There are massive transfer fees and wages. The price for a Premier League club is different to anywhere else. But they are not at the top yet. They are young players still making their way.”
Sancho has not been helped at United by the pressure Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is under. It is also harder to take a risk against elite opposition, a position with which Southgate has sympathy. “It is totally understandable that some of our younger players will be able to play very well against a certain level of opponent but against the really top teams there is still a step to go. A lot have done well. We have given them a lot of caps, but there is competition for places and we have to pick the people who can give us the results.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2ZSpg4t
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