Since we’re going to dissect each-other’s posts…
Bollocks. ETH's exact quote was "“He wasn't fit enough to be there. It's a combination of physically and mentally.”
It is your convenient interpretation that is a comment about mental health and a breach of trust. But it could just as easily have been about low confidence, or his attitude was wrong. You don't know what it meant.
Are you really trying to say that I chose to conveniently interpret a comment from ETH that Sancho isn’t mentally fit is about his mental health? This is a major reach from you. Regardless of what it meant, I’m not deluded in saying that almost everyone interpreted it as a mental health issue. In which case, this sort of stuff is better to be kept confidential. Maybe you would not mind if your mental health struggles were made public, but I’m sure countless people would. It was an act that lacked sensitivity on Ten Hag’s part.
It was pre-season, a series of friendlies! Means nothing as a guide to form or place in the team.
Your argument must already be based on pretty flimsy evidence, or you wouldn't feel the need to invent stuff?
How do you know?
Pre-season friendlies have a purpose. They aren’t just played for fitness. It is also a chance to experiment with new systems and a chance for the manager to observe how what is being taught on the training ground is being implemented in practice.
If you want to go down the tactical route, we can go there too. Ten Hag made it clear that he wants United to be a transition team. In pre-season, we saw this new tactic of circulating the ball in the first-phase in order to bait the opposition press in order to force the transition.
We saw those how those goals were conceded vs. Dortmund and Lens via turnovers close to our own goal as the players were getting used to the system, and we also saw how Ten Hag has persisted with that system this season. It would therefore be wrong to say that pre-season means nothing as there has been tactical continuity.
However, there has not been continuity in the case of Sancho which is why he has every reason to feel aggrieved. I felt he was one of our better performers in that false 9 position and the team was a lot more balanced with him dropping into the pockets to link the play and open up space for others to run in behind.
I’m not inventing the fact that ETH opted to play Rashford as a 9 in our first two games despite the fact that his back to goal play is poor and he is not good at connecting the play. If Sancho did show some bad attitude in response, this is likely the cause of it. If I was in his shoes, I would certainly feel like there is nothing I can do to please this manager and he wouldn’t give me a fair crack at the whip.
Ten Hag gave a simple answer why Sancho has not been selected. SANCHO then invited the social media pile on by disputing it... on social media. What an idiot.
Then people like you decided to invent a Jenga Tower of bullshit to explain why it's OK for an underperforming player to keep underperforming and really it's the manager's fault.
Footballers earn their own reputations, not their managers. Sancho is earning a bad rep all by himself.
Sancho has every right to dispute it. Ten Hag could have just said it was a tactical decision and left it at that. Instead, he made a comment that exposed Sancho to question marks about his professionalism. Note how I’m not here defending Sancho’s professionalism. I’m not in training to observe him nor am I his friend or family member. I just felt it was a totally unnecessary remark. I do not object to Ten Hag dropping Sancho over an apparent lack of professionalism. I object to him making it public.
Imagine for a second if your boss bad mouthed you on a public platform thereby alienating you in the eyes of other potential employers. How would you feel?
This is why Sancho had to refute this statement in public. Ten Hag made the initial statement in public, Sancho had to protect his own reputation because, at the end of the day, his manager is dragging it through the mud.
Again, an assertion with no evidence. (Also I love how you think managing a team of top 1% performers in a high pressure environment for a world class organisation, is anything like what you or I are used to at work).
He didn't throw him under the bus. He challenged him to do better.
I don’t think Sancho viewed it as his being challenged to do better. Moreover, being humiliated in a public setting is not going to make an employee want to work harder to prove a point. It can demoralise people totally and break their spi
SANCHO exposed himself to the social media pile on, not Ten Hag. He has agency. He had an alternative course of action. He could've said, "Fair enough boss, I do need to push a bit harder. I'm on it." No pile on. In fact, we'd have admired him for it, because that is the sort of player we need.
Sancho is in this mess because he made, and continues to make, bad decisions. He needs to own it, and fans like you need to stop protecting players who aren't up to playing for us.
Sancho did not say anything publicly until Ten Hag did. I’m sure Sancho did the whole “fair enough boss, I need to work harder” thing at the start of the year and behind closed doors but this actual was likely a last resort.
Regardless of it all, Sancho’s career at United under ETH is finished due to what is ultimately a personality clash. My concern is for the mental well-being of our players because they are not going to give their all on the pitch for a manager who they dislike. If even greats like Jose Mourinho and Louis Van Gaal could not survive calling out players in the press, what makes you think Ten Hag would? Remove the season in which Frenkie De Jong carried Ajax to Champions League semi-final, what credit does he have in the bank to make him a manager worthy of Man United?
This is my fundamental concern. It’s not about Sancho, because players come and players go and I have a personal preference for more direct wingers. It’s about Ten Hag’s divisive and alienating behaviour. It’s about Ten Hag treating the club like a personality cult, clearly having his favourites (remember how Weghorst starting almost 30 games in a row despite being far worse than the likes of Bebe and Obertan?), and almost exclusively recruiting from the Eredivisie.
Moreover, it’s about Ten Hag lacking the social skills to keep the dressing room on board. You have to remember that these footballers are human beings with egos too. In an ideal world, they would not have egos but the reality is that they do and part of the art of managing a big club like Manchester United is managing those personalities and keeping everybody on-board with the vision and strategy.
Believe me, my friend. I am rooting for Ten Hag just as I rooted for every Manchester United manager. We could be managed by Steven Gerrard and I would only want us to win. But I fear that what Ten Hag is doing will demoralise the players and ensure that he loses the dressing room, which would ensure that we are unable to challenge and will have to go through another rebuild.