Jadon Sancho has one last chance to save his Manchester United career

There are times when Jadon Sancho locks the door of the academy team dressing room, alone with his thoughts, and must wonder how it has come to this.

A £73 million move to Manchester United from Borussia Dortmund in July 2021 was supposed to provide the platform and exposure for the England winger to take his game to the next level.

But, of all the expensive signings who have funnelled through Old Trafford in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, few have found the going as tough or delivered as little on their promise as Sancho.

Sancho was given three months away by Ten Hag last season to address his physical and mental condition and now, for very different reasons, he finds himself working alone again. This time he is exiled from the first-team squad after a feud with the manager that is about to extend into a seventh week and shows no immediate signs of ending, despite the efforts of team-mates, staff and executives to break the impasse.

Visit United’s Carrington training base on any ordinary day and, away from the noise and bustle of the under-18 and under-21 teams, let alone the first-team squad, you will find Sancho working one-to-one with individual coaches.

It is a sad sight and some details, in particular, point to the extent of the separation and isolation, which in itself feels uncomfortable given what Sancho worked through personally last season. Banished from the first team set-up while he refuses to apologise to Ten Hag over his public outburst at the start of last month, Sancho must change in the academy dressing room.

But because strict safeguarding rules prevent him from sharing a dressing room with those academy players who are still classed as minors, the 23-year-old must change alone and with the door locked so there is no risk of anyone entering.

After a truncated last season and now this, it does not feel like Sancho does what he is paid to do very often these days and the longer his exile persists the more fans may wonder if they will see the player in that famous red shirt again.

There is, it should be said, a route back at Old Trafford for Sancho, or at least the pretence of one.

Ten Hag does not just want Sancho to say sorry in private, he requires a full public apology to mirror the action which saw the player take to social media and effectively accuse his manager of lying over the reasons for his absence in the 3-1 defeat at Arsenal on September 3.

According to Ten Hag, Sancho was omitted because of his “performance in training”, to which the player reacted by telling his 2.2 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) that there were “other reasons” and that he had been made “a scapegoat for a long time which isn’t fair”.

There have been other battles with Sancho, not least around his time-keeping, but speak to those with visibility of the situation and they will say such matters have been resolved. It is that social media post and its contents that remain at the crux of the problem.

Ten Hag, determined to enforce a code of discipline and raise standards at a club that have lost their way, is not for backing down.

The problem is Sancho, so far at least, appears unwilling to either. In his mind, there have been notable inconsistencies in the way Ten Hag has applied certain rules in relation to him compared to team-mates. Nonetheless, the ball remains in his court. As one source put it: “Jadon can easily solve this tomorrow”.

The clocks go back at the end of the month and maybe the impending onset of winter or the prospect of a new minority shareholder, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, taking control of football operations at Old Trafford will spark a change of stance but, until then, the stand-off remains.

There has not been a shortage of people looking to resolve the matter. John Murtough, United’s football director, has been heavily involved and other support staff have tried to reason with Sancho, too. Even his United team-mates, including some of his closest allies in the dressing room, have urged him to apologise and end the dispute. Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw and Harry Maguire, Sancho’s England colleagues, are among those who hope the situation can be put to bed, as is captain Bruno Fernandes.

They understand Sancho has his grievances but also recognise that making accusations about a manager in public will have consequences. Plenty in United’s squad recognise that discipline had dropped to such a level in the final season before Ten Hag came in that things had to change. Rashford, for example, apologised swiftly after being dropped from the starting XI against Wolves last Christmas after being late for a team meeting and everyone moved on.

Can Sancho and Ten Hag do the same? There is little denying his Old Trafford future is in doubt and, if an apology is not forthcoming, it would be no surprise if United sought to move him on in the January transfer window.

Equally, even if he does apologise, Ten Hag is likely to need a lot of convincing in training and on match days that Sancho is a player who should stay along for the ride beyond the short-term.