Gary Neville has warned Jadon Sancho after yet another disappointing evening for the former Borussia Dortmund winger.
Speaking to Mirror, Gary Neville has made a dooming prediction over the future of Jadon Sancho at Manchester United. The football pundit has backed the winger while criticising his team’s lack of identity but believes that he needs to be careful if he is to avoid facing the same fate as Donny van de Beek.
Sancho has been on the receiving end of some major criticism in the English footballing sphere, starting from his missed penalty in the European Championship final against Italy. It was followed by his struggles at his new club Manchester United, where the winger has failed to register a single goal or assist.
A major problem for Sancho this term has been the lack of game-time offered to him by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. In the seven Premier League matches he has played so far, only three of them have been starts. In fact, the former Dortmund starlet hasn’t even featured in three of Man United’s last five league games, including the recent 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur.
Neville fears that this might not bode well for Sancho and may result in him turning into another van de Beek. “Sancho, if he’s not careful, is going to end up exactly the same [as Van de Beek]. He’s played in some pretty appalling performances in the last few [weeks], not him… I mean team performances,” he said.
The former United professional then went on to criticise the lack of identity of the Red Devils. “He’s come into a club that’s looked completely disjointed in terms of their football. He’s played in a far better team and unit at Dortmund. He’s come in here and probably thinking, ‘What the hell am I in here? What is this?’. There’s no organisation, there’s no structure, the defensive work rate is poor.”
Neville added: “There is no doubt this is not Ole’s plan. Having Greenwood and Sancho on the bench is not the plan. It wasn’t part of the recruitment plan in the summer, that’s not what Ole was thinking. The change of system did look like it benefitted Cristiano Ronaldo because it took the pressure off him from a defensive point of view.
“Today suited him perfectly. He looked like a team he was part of. Sancho will end up exactly the same [as Van de Beek] if he’s not careful.”
Fortunately for both Sancho and van de Beek, Solskjaer’s job is hanging merely by a thread despite the recent win over Tottenham. Roy Keane has already warned the Norwegian to not take the Spurs result seriously and focus on the upcoming game against Manchester City next weekend.
