Jadon Sancho has played over 500 minutes for Manchester United since his move from Borussia Dortmund in the summer transfer window.
The England international had been linked with a switch to Old Trafford for over a year, and the Premier League club finally got their man, and even for a lower price than what had been demanded in 2020.
Sancho was seen as someone who could walk into the team, and take up a role on the right, but he hasn’t had the regular starts that many will have expected. On Tuesday, he came on in the dying minutes of the draw with Atalanta, and has featured in every Champions League game his club has played this season.
Inevitably, given he was a big Manchester United signing, there’s been questions asked about why the 21-year-old hasn’t had a bigger impact so far, and why he hasn’t been given more minutes.
German journalist Lukas Hörster has written a piece for Fussball Transfers, and handed out some advice to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He believes the manager has the ‘wrong image’ of Sancho, and is showing this by seeing the player as a winger who can send crosses in to players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani.
Sancho is said to be more of a ‘free spirit’, rather than a specialist winger, and Solskjaer needs to correct this ‘wrong image’ if he wants to avoid the player flopping.
Of course, playing such a role in the Bundesliga does not automatically mean Sancho will do the same in the Premier League, and the Ronaldo signing will have changed plans for the club’s attack. At the beginning of last season, there were multiple claims in Germany that Sancho wasn’t at his best, and there were suggestions he was struggling to move on after all the transfer drama.
Given his young age, there’s every chance the player is being eased in and protected by his manager.
