Jadon Sancho’s departure to Dortmund has become another lens through which to view how the arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe has changed Manchester United, and in particular, coach Erik ten Hag.
Dortmund will pay a fee and cover a portion of Sancho’s walloping weekly stipend of £370k. However, the absence of an option to buy at the insistence of United suggests the club are hedging their bets over the player and the manager.
Ten Hag has a remarkable capacity for addressing the present as if he were not attached to a diabolical past. He happily submits to photo requests when out and about in Manchester and treats every media conference like an opportunity for rebirth. Goodness knows he needs one after presiding over more defeats in a calendar year, 21, than any United coach in the best part of a century.
His record in the league this season, losing nine of the first 20 matches, is United’s worst since the launch of the Premier League 30 years ago. The 14 defeats suffered in all competitions outstrips the 12 victories, an unsustainable metric in normal circumstances. It would appear the prolonged takeover process, taking more than 12 months to reach the ratification stage, has protected Ten Hag from dismissal.
As persuasive as his first season might have been, finishing third and winning the Carabao Cup, the campaign still included nine Premier League defeats, including a seven-nil-er at Liverpool, which in itself would have seen prior incumbents dispatched to the Tower.
Ten Hag now claims United overachieved in his first year, a radical revision that can be seen only as an attempt to balance the horrors of this term.
Last week’s tour of the Carrington training complex was essentially a meet-and-greet with staff in which the Ineos top brass led by Ratcliffe sought to position themselves as a reasonable, listening leadership determined to usher in change sympathetically in the best interests of the club. Ineos head of sport Sir Dave Brailsford has built a career as the great enabler. He knows how to get people on side.
He is also, as any successful leader must be, a calculating figure and ruthless decision-maker, who will do whatever is required to get United moving again. The positive signals noted by Ten Hag in their introductory meetings do not preclude a rapid shift in tone should the coach be perceived as a contributory factor in United’s alarming decline.
Brailsford has seen United dance both ways, setting off flares during a spectacular comeback at home to Aston Villa after falling two goals behind, and days later falling passively at The City Ground against Nottingham Forest.
Hitherto Ineos were unable to connect results with process. That veil has been removed. Ten Hag is now operating under observation from one of the keenest eyes in British sport. The rights and wrongs of the Sancho affair will be reassessed under informed conditions.
Sancho scored 50 goals for Dortmund in 137 appearances with 64 assists. Those contributions have shrunk alarmingly since joining United in 2021 to 12 goals in 82 matches with just six assists.
United are banking on the return to Dortmund triggering a recovery that will at least reinflate a transfer value that has halved from £73m in 30 months.
It is clear that Sancho’s future lies away from Old Trafford as long as Ten Hag is in charge. We can at least deduce that much from last week’s briefings. The player has always insisted that he was made a scapegoat by Ten Hag for poor performances and has not played since the 3-1 defeat at Arsenal in August.
Problems with timekeeping, an obsession with gaming and poor attitude in training have been invoked as factors to explain the fallout with Ten Hag. Whatever the truth of that, whether they be permanent characteristics or not, they did not hinder output in the Bundesliga.
If this were a tennis match you might argue Sancho is two sets down. With three sets to play and Antony still in favour at Old Trafford, he has a glimmer of taking this to a fifth should United continue to regress on Ten Hag’s watch.
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