The head coach of the England national team, Gareth Southgate, said he was not surprised that Jadon Sancho is still struggling to adapt to football at Manchester United.
The reason Southgate gave for that was that the German Bundesliga is different from the Premier League. He also noted that though Borussia Dortmund is a big club, Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Since Jadon Sancho who was the assists king in German Bundesliga joined Manchester United from Dortmund on July 23, 2021, for a transfer fee worth €85 million, he has not provided any assist nor a goal in 8 games.
Recall that during his last season at Borussia Dortmund, Jadon Sancho played 38 times in all competitions. In those games, the 21-year-old left-winger scored 16 goals and provided 20 assists.
In his three seasons at Borussia Dortmund, Jadon Sancho played 137 games in all competitions in which he scored 50 goals and provided 64 assists.
These explosive stats gave him his call up to the England national team on October 12, 2018. Since then, he has made 22 appearances and he has scored three goals for the team.
However, so far at Manchester United, the winger has been a shadow of himself which made many question the high transfer fee the Premier League club paid for his services.
But coach Gareth Southgate said: “With Jadon, I’m not surprised, really.
“The Bundesliga is totally different, Dortmund is a big club but Manchester United is one of the biggest in the world.
“There’s some adaptation to that, there’s a definite adaptation to the league, you’re not going to get the goals and assists numbers anywhere near in our league, that you are in the Bundesliga.
“There are some very good teams but also it’s a good league for young players to develop him because there are some teams that aren’t at that level.
“Our league, every game is intense and tough and he’s probably just starting to realize that.”
Gareth Southgate admits Jadon Sancho’s form at United is not good enough for the national team
Jadon Sancho has been an integral part of the England national team since 2018. But if his form continues the way it has been since he joined Manchester United, he might no longer enjoy regular call up to the team.
Ahead of the October FIFA international break, the coach of the national team, Gareth Southgate said that based on Sancho’s current form, he does not deserve a call-up.
Southgate however noted that he would not hesitate to give Sancho a call up for England’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Hungary.
He said: “Does he deserve to be in on these performances over the last few weeks? Well, probably not.
“But I think we feel we have invested in Jadon over a period of time, we believe he can get to a high level.
“I would like some time with him to chat with him and help that process that’s going on at Manchester United as well and I think for him to feel that we have belief in him at this point is a good message.
“So again we’re talking about there’s no perfect solution here and you could easily throw another name at me that we’ve left out in the past and say, ‘well you didn’t deal with them in the same way’.
“We try to individually do the right thing at the right time, send the right message and sometimes the right message is to leave a player out and maybe they respond and that’s the right thing but we feel with Jadon at this time it is important for us to keep him with us.”
Jadon Sancho didn’t score his first Bundesliga goal of last season until Matchday 14. In his following 10 appearances, he was directly involved in 12 goals — 6 goals & 6 assists.
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) September 30, 2021
Inevitable. 💫⏳ pic.twitter.com/9TFOE802sD
