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5 months ago
43 Jose Mourinho blamed Erik ten Hag for failing to “get the best out of” Jadon Sancho at Manchester United.
Firstly, we must point out that this is incredibly harsh criticism of Ten Hag, considering the winger also struggled under previous managers Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick.
Sancho had a public fallout with Ten Hag and called the manager a liar. The same manager who gave the England international time off the previous season to work on his mental and physical development.
All Sancho had to do was apologise and Ten Hag would have given him another opportunity, but United coach Benni McCarthy explained this week that he would never do that.
Jose Mourinho, who was recently appointed the new manager of Fenerbahce, has used the Sancho fallout to slam Ten Hag. It is not the first time the former United manager has spoken out against the Dutchman.
After being frozen out of the first team, Sancho moved back to Borussia Dortmund on loan. They played in the Champions League final against Real Madrid tonight, and Mourinho was on punditry duty.
Speaking on TNT Sports ahead of the final, Mourinho said (via Metro): “As a player, we know his talent. We saw what he could do, there are no doubts about it. What happened at Man United…if I look at my own history, sometimes I failed with players. Sometimes I couldn’t create the right empathy, I couldn’t understand the player’s DNA and I couldn’t help players grow up in the right direction. The majority of times, yes, I did it but on some occasions, I couldn’t.
“I think sometimes we have to learn with experiences, which I tried always to do, to try to understand the nature of the player. Sometimes they have the talent but don’t have the mindset you want from a player. For sure, the kid [Sancho] made mistakes, that’s for sure, but for sure his manager was not able to get the best out of him.”
This could be a ploy to convince Sancho that Fenerbahce could be his new home. Mourinho knows when to brown nose and he doesn’t mind swiping unnecessarily at Ten Hag.
Mourinho overlooks that Sancho failed under Solskjaer and Rangnick before Ten Hag took charge at Old Trafford.
What was the excuse then?
When questioned about whether Sancho was let down by United as a whole, Mourinho highlighted such situations are typically influenced by multiple factors: “Normally, it’s multi-factorial. Normally, it’s not the manager, the player, the family, the agent, the club.”
But Mourinho still believes that coaches must take responsivity is getting the most out of their players.
Sancho had little to no impact on the final as Real Madrid won 2-0 at Wembley. He was afforded 87 minutes of action before being substituted towards the end.
Sancho started on the right wing as Dortmund played in a 4-3-3 formation. Karim Adeyemi was on the opposite flank and Niclas Fullkrug led the line.
The United loanee embarked on three dribbles and completed just one, while touching the ball 39 times. Sancho delivered 26 of the 31 passes he attempted, managing an individual pass completion rate of 84%.
It remains to be seen if Dortmund will try make their Sancho deal a permanent one in the summer.
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