Coman at least makes more sense because he actually is a wide player that loves isolated one on ones and beats full backs. Sancho has collected his scorers and made his best plays cutting inside and playing between the lines for Dortmund. You would not only shoehorn a player who don't really has the important attributes for an attacking wing back (physique, pace, work rate, crossing) into a position he's not used to, you'd also use him in a different area of the pitch. I mean, Sancho played a very similar formation to the one you suggested for Dortmund regularly during his time there but he was a central player in it, not the RWB. That role was occupied by Hakimi and it would have seemed absolutely ridiculous to play Sancho there because he had such a different skill set.
The fact that this was the one player Solskjaer wanted to sign the most seems almost bizarre. I hope he's either gone within the next few weeks or that Sancho has enough and wants out again. This is risking the career of one of the most exciting talents in world football - all because of incompetence.
I assumed it wasn't Solskjaer as much as the club hierarchy.
You're not wrong about Sancho, and maybe we'll play 4 at the back with him as a fairly conventional wide player with license to come inside. We really have no idea at the moment because the team is without any real structure. Will Rashford be best at LW or like Sane will he end up looking better not inverted because he can use his pace to attack.
Hakimi has great raw pace, but that's not the only way to make it work. Pep is using Gabriel Jesus out wide on the right which nobody saw coming. Ultimately at a big club there's going to be players playing wide who would be (or were or will be in the future) used centrally at small clubs.
The only thing I really feel confident saying is that I'd have him out wide at the moment whether we're tucking in Wan-Bissaka or not, because he'll suit an aging Cristiano better than Greenwood or Rashford will in that he'll look to create chances for him as opposed to just himself. Add that to the truth that there's hardly any point in having Wan-Bissaka attack at the moment and we don't have anyone else decent to play RB (whether they're tucking inside with Sancho wide and high, or overlapping him while Sancho is more often in the half-spaces) and sticking him very wide to provide some width on the right looks like possibly the best of a bad situation.
The next manager's style will dictate where Sancho plays, whether that's as a winger with a FB underlapping/tucking in behind him, or Sancho coming inside more like at Dortmund with a fullback or wingback wide of him, or maybe Rangnick will come and we'll play 4-2-2-2 with Sancho and Bruno tucked in behind 2 strikers.
He's a quality player who should be part of the core the new manager centres things around along with Rashford, Greenwood, Bruno, Shaw and Varane. Nobody else seems like an above 50% likelihood to put together a quality 4-5 years as a first choice player here. When you look at that group, it seems like the obvious move is Greenwood up top, Sancho and Rashford wide of him in attack, Bruno as the most attacking of a band of 3 midfielders, Shaw at LB and Varane as a CB, and we need 2 new defenders and a new double pivot, and the goalkeepers I genuinely have no idea. I don't think there's anything in that group that shouldn't allow Sancho to play a similar role to the one he played at Dortmund, as long as we sign a RB who can attack or Wan-Bissaka is improved by the new manager. But this season? We might be best with him as wide as possible on the right since it doesn't seem like we're going to make a right-side that works without it, and it's not like we've focused on seeing if a Sancho-Shaw partnership on the left is something to build around.
25
