After physical & mental problems
103 days after his last appearance, Jadon Sancho has celebrated his comeback on the pitch. In Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest in the EFL Cup semi-final second leg, the 22-year-old came on for Antony in the 63rd minute to much applause from the fans.
The former Dortmund player has not played since October 22 after coach Erik ten Hag decided to rest his charge after he was diagnosed with physical and mental problems which he felt needed to be addressed. Even after his return from the Netherlands, where the left winger trained under the guidance of coaches whom ten Hag knew personally from his time there, Sancho had to be patient until he got his chance.
“I loved that the fans gave him their love. I think he enjoyed being back on the pitch. He has always smiled at Carrington (Man United’s training center; ed.) in recent weeks. I hope that he can continue this process and of course that he makes a big contribution to the season,” said ten Hag after the game (quoted via “BBC‘), in which Anthony Martial (73′) and Fred (76’) scored the goals. The first leg ended 3-0.
Sancho at Man United: At first no explanation for the drop in performance
Sancho hadn’t been called up for England’s World Cup squad last year and had previously failed to impress in the Premier League either. Initially, ten Hag did not know an exact explanation for the drop in performance, who commented on it in December: “I had several conversations with Jadon. Sometimes you don’t know why or what it is. That’s what we’re trying to explore now and bring him back down to earth.”
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The winger, who switched from Borussia Dortmund to United in the summer of 2021 for 85 million euros, has scored eight goals and four assists for the English record champions in 53 games so far. For BVB he scored 50 goals and gave 64 assists in a total of 137 games, won the DFB Cup and became a national team player. When England lost the final against Italy at the home European Championship in 2021, Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka failed on penalties. After that, the trio was massively racially insulted in comment columns.
This one felt good.@sanchooo10 #MUFC || #CarabaoCup pic.twitter.com/hNiDxeoHMV
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 1, 2023
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