It's weird that he often looks so slow for United, when he was able to do this for Dortmund - he's not much behind Haaland for pace here, and he's running with the ball and clearly adjusting his pace because of timing the run of Haaland:
25
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 3
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 0
- Status
I don't think pace is the issue, I think (and this is based on many videos I have seen from Dortmund days, not only United) is that he can't handle being challenged physically. I think acceleration is more important for him but that seems to be missing.
Excellent performance. Has looked very good this pre season, and I really like him there. I think a problem in the 2nd half when the 1st team came out was they just weren't going through him as much, just tried to punt it long every time whereas the first half and start of the second we played through him and were looking very good.
He has always been confident in meaningless games or when we were out of sight in a particular game, that he's not able to convert it when the pressure is on is literally his biggest issue. Even in his first season when he was largely abysmal, you could have concluded it was due to lack of confidence which made him not try to do anything except pass backwards to the nearest player when he got the ball.
There have even a handful of times he's ran at full pelt for United and I've thought to myself "where has that been?" But it has literally been a few times.
I think it's in there, there is just some kind of lethargy to his performances. The drive to do it consistently is lacking. Or lack of faith in his fitness to go on high intensity sprints as he's worried he'll be knackered. Which isn't unfounded because he constantly fades in games.
He's got to be fit, motivated and he has to unlock himself, free himself out there. I don't think he's slow by any means, he just plays like it.
Looked very neat. Still certain moments where I'd like to see him doing better in the final third, but his approach play has been very neat.
I think he'll be our very own Dusan Tadic this season, and I can imagine he'll rotate quite often with Hojlund, as he'll give a complete different option.
I think he'll be our very own Dusan Tadic this season, and I can imagine he'll rotate quite often with Hojlund, as he'll give a complete different option.
If he can keep up the intensity he could make it work.
Like vs Liverpool, or his goal to get back into the game vs City.
Unfortunately despite the false dawn, he isn’t going to make it here. Not got the attributes to be effective out wide and we have better options centrally. At this point it would just be an endeavour to shoehorn him in. Need to move him on.
I fancy Sancho and Antony to have big seasons. The manager is slowly coaxing their best out of them and building their confidence and fitness. I think we have a few good players that need the arm around the shoulder approach. Martial being another. Rasmus will surely need guidance and patience. Many other managers would criticise individuals publicly as we fell behind last season but ETH is playing his cards right so far. You feel like the players will go the extra mile for him and respect him.
Nobody is buying it this season. He looked like a world beater last season as well - until the serious football started. He likes it easy and doesn't enjoy the struggle (especially physical hustle). And I really like his skillset. The mentality just isn't there.
Sancho might still turn this around but ETH needs to build a more effective system first. He will not take you a level up, but he might be an effective addition.
He was not even good in that game against City, and we lost 4-1 after being utterly battered for virtually all game.
Liverpool I don't even consider that high pressure as it was early in the season and nobody expected us to do anything against them after losing to Brighton and Brentford. It's exactly the type of situation he can thrive in, we go into the game not expecting to do anything hence any errors are not going to be scrutinized that much.
Also, picking two moments when he's played dozens of high pressure games for us and failed in virtually all of them does not really prove anything.
Sorry, the Liverpool game wasn't high pressure because we just lost twice in a row?
Point is, you're saying he never plays with confidence in meaningful games which is false.
OK let's change that to 'almost never'. He's fairly confident in about 2-3% of meaningful games.
Which meaningful games did he start in last session that he was poor in?
"In this moment he is in a very good vibe. He decides how he is, how his mood and vibe is. He has a lot of energy - we all saw it from the moment he came back.
The bolded part from Ten hag comments is what I'm counting on. The talent is there if he ever brings his intensity even up to the level of any of our other forwards, he will be so good it would transfom our attack because the technical attributes are there in abundance.
The bolded part from Ten hag comments is what I'm counting on. The talent is there if he ever brings his intensity even up to the level of any of our other forwards, he will be so good it would transfom our attack because the technical attributes are there in abundance.
Not sure if it's a serious question. I consider nearly all PL / CL / EL games to be meaningful, and he's been largely underwhelming in most of them. He's definitely had far more bad than good games for us and confidence is an issue with him even in the games where he isn't completely awful as he hardly ever attempts anything out of the box. It's usually 'pass it to the nearest player' routine for majority of his plays. The truly good games from him last year that I recall were Liverpool, Leicester, Leeds and Chelsea, though I might be forgetting 2 or 3. Chelsea game was the ultimate no pressure game against a team that folded weeks prior and it also happened to be by far his best game for us.
We've been going through the same cycle with him for two years. He plays poorly for 500 minutes, then pops up with a second of brilliance and everyone thinks he's turned the corner, which is then followed by another 500 minutes of nothing.
OK so you weren't counting the big games only, that's what I wanted to understand.
My point is, last season was personally a turbulent year for him. I do however oppose this notion that he's always poor in big games. In fact, he has if anything come more alive in those types of fixtures than anything else.
He also is being moved around positionally, which I'm not a fan of. Antonys arrival killed his progression too, because he can't get half a game on the right wing anymore even if Antony has a series of stinkers.
Although he’s no Robben, Giggs or Ronaldo in terms of speed, he’s still quicker than Grealish and Mahrez, and especially both Silvas at City. All of them are good to great out wide drifting in. No reason Sancho doesn’t have the physical attributes for that. His intensity needs to go up, a lot.
Yeah I don’t think Antony’s presence really helps. I doubt Sancho can be a real competitor for Antony as it is pretty clear ETH favors Antony and has much more patience for his underperformance.
I expect Sancho to be much better this season though, as he will mostly come off the bench I think we can create more situations for him to play well.
I still believe we shouldn't test fate and if an offer came in cash in while we still got the chance, cut our losses so to speak.
I don't think he's ever going to make it here, the left channel is already locked down by Rashford and garnacho and Antony seems to be more preferred by Eric, doubt he's got the attributes to make it in the midfield either and certainly not as striker.
I don't think he's ever going to make it here, the left channel is already locked down by Rashford and garnacho and Antony seems to be more preferred by Eric, doubt he's got the attributes to make it in the midfield either and certainly not as striker.
Totally agree. I think at a Madrid, Bayern, City he'd probably have been sold. The only thing is I don't really see any teams coming in for him at his wage and transfer fee. Hopefully he can be useful this season after having very poor seasons by the standard of the player we thought we were getting.
So assuming he had two or three decent performances in meaningful games, this means he has already played 100+ meaningful games for United? Damn that's a log in two seasons
If Rasmus hits the ground running, then I think Sancho will only get the big 2, Premier and Ch Lge matches from the bench. If someone did offer £35 mill+ we ought to look at selling. Its a big dropoff from what we paid, but its a big dropoff as well his performances from his Dortmund days.
Is it just me or Sancho looks much stronger physically? People bounced off him couple of times in preseason. Impressive. I guess he’ll play 80% of his time centrally coming season.
I mean some of his biggest goals have come against tough opposition so not sure much of this is accurate.
He doesn't lack confidence as much as he does aggression. This is less of an issue playing through the middle as that position forces him to get on the ball and connect play as opposed to being isolated on a wing 1v1 and his natural tendency being to keep the ball instead of risking losing it driving at a player.
Anyways I'm hoping he makes the RW position his with Rashford and Hojlund in the other two spots. He's a brilliant playmaker from that right side.
Agreed. Although there is something in that "confidence" I remember a few games where he lost the ball a couple of times in early stages and never recovered.
Looking forward to seeing him more centrally this season. Clearly, he relishes those inside half spaces a lot more and now he has an actual unit of a target to hit. I think he's gonna cook.
Yeah I agree with that, I guess my point about aggression more points to his overall demeanor as a player as you could see even in his Dortmund days he was always someone to look for the "right" option as opposed to having a "feck it, I'm skinning my man and banging this top bins" type mentality on the wing. The former works well in a perfect team of attacking options and space, but the latter tends to be a bit more useful to make an impact in the Prem where there's less space and the game operates a bit quicker.
If we're going to do well this season, we need Sancho and Antony to buck up a lot. Our attack was overly reliant on Rashford and Bruno last season.
We are going into this season with ample of exciting talent - the four above, as well as Garncho, Hojlund, Martial (when fit) and probably one of the younger wingers too.
Hopefully with the horror of last season behind him, with a decent pre-season, he can build on this. A Dortmund-Sancho would be incredible for us.
We are going into this season with ample of exciting talent - the four above, as well as Garncho, Hojlund, Martial (when fit) and probably one of the younger wingers too.
Hopefully with the horror of last season behind him, with a decent pre-season, he can build on this. A Dortmund-Sancho would be incredible for us.
No particular analysis from me but it's going to have to be an absolute sea change in his performances and figures to come anywhere near value for money considering the amount the club spent on him and continues to pay him.
Him, Antony and Martial, right there....3 huge disappointments on immense piles of cash delivering the square root of zilch.
Him, Antony and Martial, right there....3 huge disappointments on immense piles of cash delivering the square root of zilch.
Haven't we been through this before?
"Now that he's playing out left he's going to do great."
"We've finally moved him back to the right where he's at his best!"
Even last season he had a short run centrally where people got excited.
It's a long hard season and he's gonna play, so I'm choosing to root for the guy instead of shitting on him at every chance.
Minor a couple of moments in the last 5 minutes, he looked completely passive.
Make or break season for him. His touch was off when he came on. One good run at the end.
Slowly getting fed up with him. 
Gonna spend the season mostly as a backup to Antony on the right wing. He's hopefully capable at least to do that.
This is a bad investment
- Status