For the second January in a row, Manchester United finds itself somewhat restricted in the transfer market. Last season, Wout Weghorst was the answer, and a few somewhat left-field names are doing the rounds again.
It’s not clear how this fits into Newcastle’s grand FFP theory, with fans of the club seemingly convinced that Profit and Sustainability rules are uniquely formulated to raise the drawbridge on clubs outside the big six. But while it is true that Liverpool has had no trouble with the rules, having spent responsibly, Manchester United is certainly hamstrung.
And just like Newcastle, Erik ten Hag’s side has only itself to blame. There is no great mystery as to why these restrictions have bitten: Manchester United has spent lavishly in recent transfer windows, with minimal sales to offset that.
Plenty of the signings have been a shambles. Prior to today, Antony had played 16 Premier League games this season without a goal or assist to his name. There are question marks over André Onana. Mason Mount has offered almost nothing, and Rasmus Højlund has been little better.
Ten Hag’s hit rate in the transfer market has been abysmal, in short. But none of the signings have been quite as awful as a deal that predated his arrival at Old Trafford.
Jadon Sancho arrived with much fanfare in the summer of 2021. Liverpool had taken a look, as had most big clubs in Europe, but Manchester United won the race for his signature. It even knocked down the initial Borussia Dortmund asking price to a vaguely reasonable-looking $93m (£73m/€85m).
But talk of Manchester United potentially securing a bargain quickly dissipated. Sancho had a somewhat pedestrian start, managing just six goal involvements in his first Premier League season. That crept up to nine in 2022/23, but Ten Hag hadn’t exactly unlocked his full potential.
Gary Neville was among those to stick up for Sancho at first. He blamed the wider malaise at the club in 2021. “He’s come in and is probably thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here, what is this, there’s no organisation or structure’,” Neville said, via MEN. “He’s the only player, if you look at Manchester United’s defensive running stats, that is anywhere near. I think he’s fifth or sixth, he’s actually putting a shift in.”
But Ten Hag’s side secured Champions League football last season, seemingly ending that excuse. Yet any hopes Sancho would kick on further were brought to an abrupt halt when the manager axed him from the first team squad altogether, as a dispute over Sancho’s training ground efforts spiraled out of control.
That’s come to a head in January, with Manchester United engineering a loan for Sancho back to his old club Borussia Dortmund. And the latest development suggests Neville might have been right all along.
Within minutes of coming off the bench to make his second debut for Dortmund, Sancho had registered an assist for Marco Reus. After 15 goals and assists in just under 3600 league minutes at Manchester United, he got 6.6 per cent of the way to that tally in a little over half an hour back in the Bundesliga.
Regardless of the manager, Manchester United is becoming the place where good players come to flop. The environment is simply not conducive to developing or even maintaining talents.
There was a sense of resignation from Neville, who simply quote-tweeted a clip of the assist with two laughing emojis. That echoed a feeling shared by many: it always seemed inevitable that Sancho would thrive away from Old Trafford.
Of course, Manchester United will hope he does well, if only to try and recoup something of the transfer fee it spent in the first place. But it’s a damning indictment of what Neville already hinted at.
Fortunately for Liverpool, this would never happen on Jürgen Klopp’s watch. The German is a master of getting the absolute best from his players, making signings and then helping them kick on. Even when things don’t click straight away, like with Darwin Núñez, he does everything possible to take the pressure out of the situation. By contrast, Ten Hag massively escalated things with Sancho, starting a public war of words, and the fallout felt so avoidable.
Liverpool might be called clever for avoiding a transfer for Sancho in the first place, and that’s probably fair. But he is showing how much of a difference the environment around a player can make, and a move to Anfield might have gone very differently.
The really smart move from Liverpool, then, was avoiding a situation where it became the problem for players instead of the solution. In appointing Klopp and then repeatedly placing faith in young talents, the club has massively increased its chances of success in the transfer market regardless of the specific individuals being targeted.
