COMMENT: He’s not there yet, but he’s getting closer. A year into his Manchester United career and Jadon Sancho is now threatening to produce the sort of football that had Ole Gunnar Solskjaer insist they not waver from their two-year pursuit of his signature…
A year to settle in. A full preseason. The departure of negative influences. They’ve all been factors in the improvement and consistency we’re now seeing from Sancho in these early weeks of the season.
But beyond all that, it was his inspired drag back and goal against Liverpool that has taken the midfielder’s game to a new level. Confidence. Self-belief. But crucially instinct. Natural instinct. It’s now flowing through Sancho’s game. The feints. The jinks. We’re now seeing it more and more. The daring. The adventure. Sancho is backing himself and growing game by game.
James Milner copped it in the aftermath of United’s famous Monday night triumph. Sancho sinking the veteran with a superb use of the sole of his boot, before firing into a virtual empty net. And that was just it, Sancho, in the one swivel also fooled Alisson, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way with Milner already grounded. With the Brazilian sprawled out on his left-side, the rest for Sancho was easy.
There was something natural about the goal. An instinct. It was all reaction. A natural reaction, from some ten, even fifteen years, previous from the day-after-day cage football Sancho pursued in South London. It was the sort of move he honed as an eight year-old. A move which helped him earn his break at Watford.
Last season, there was some show of promise. Some potential. But Sancho never reached the stage where you were convinced he’d back himself to skin a fullback consistently over the course of a game. Too often he’d take the easy route. Play it safe. Keep the ball. And with that, he’d also inevitably end up playing within himself.
But today. Under Erik ten Hag. We’re seeing a different player. As mentioned, he’s not there yet. But Sancho has everything now available to him to prove his old manager Solskjaer’s faith while still a player with Borussia Dortmund.
Significantly, Ten Hag laid out his plan for Sancho in preseason. Unlike with Solskjaer, the Dutchman saw Sancho as a natural right-sided winger. Yes, he can switch to the left. Or even play through middle. But Ten Hag has employed Sancho so far this season primarily on the right-side of his midfield. And after that scratchy start, both Sancho and United are thriving because of it.
“I think we have a good left side,” Ten Hag said in Melbourne, when asked about Sancho, “but I think you see against Liverpool that we also have attacks on the right side and it was good to see it because you want to have balance.
“If you are only on one side it is quite predictable so we want that to develop over two sides but also in the middle and from everywhere.”
Sancho
is Ten Hag’s right winger. It’s where he sees the player’s strengths being best exploited. And it’s noticeable there’s been no checking back this season. He’s rarely seen playing the easy infield pass. Instead, the shoulders are dropped, the feet are whirring and the fullback is attacked, again and again.
And with that, the end product is also improving. The crosses are now coming through consistently from the right-side of United’s midfield. That player Solskjaer had earmarked as his version of Andrei Kanchelskis or Lee Sharpe now almost a reality.
Indeed, Sharpe himself is convinced Sancho has everything to meet those expectations: “It was a little bit unfortunate for him last season.
“(But) he’s got unbelievable ability, great feet, good decision making, can score goals as well as create them. He’s got an amazing gift and I think he’s going to be a great player for United.”
But we’re not just seeing the potential of a jinky, tricky winger now coming through. Sancho is scoring goals. He’s passing through the lines. And hitting cross field balls like Paul Scholes in his pomp. Again, it’s not being done consistently. But the potential is there. We’re seeing it. More and more. The overall game of Sancho gradually being coaxed out of him by Ten Hag and his teammates.
For the moment, it’s still fits and starts. But the match consistency is improving. As is the confidence to chance his arm and gamble. Indeed, for this column, the momentum is now with Sancho. It may not happen this week. Or the next. But soon enough he is going to take apart a defence just as he did up and down Germany during his four years in Dortmund.
It’s a different level. A higher level. But a year into this United career, Sancho is now showing why Solskjaer was so determined to bring him back from the Bundesliga. What we were told he had on paper, we’re now witnessing in live action. Jadon Sancho really does have the potential to become a great Manchester United winger.
