Former Chelsea midfielder, John Mikel Obi has insisted that Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has thrown Jadon Sancho under the bus for publicly criticizing his performances for the club.
Mikel Obi believes Ten Hag was in the wrong for his action over Sancho, adding that it doesn’t make sense for the England winger to apologize to the Dutchman.
Recall that Ten Hag had told the media after Man United’s defeat to Arsenal in September that Sancho was not meeting the professional standards expected of a Man United player.
The former Ajax coach cited poor application in training as the reason for Sancho’s absence during Man United’s Premier League 3-1 defeat to Arsenal at Emirates Stadium.
Following Ten Hag’s statement, Sancho took to his social media account to defend himself, accusing his manager of making him a scapegoat for the Red Devils’ underperformance.
“Everybody is going about Sancho not apologizing, I have a different view on that. My view is that the manager should not have said what he said in public,” Mikel said on The Obi One podcast.
“I would not come out publicly. When you listen to the ex-United players they have all said one thing. When things like this happened before during Ferguson, it was dealt with inside the dressing room, he handled it.
“It doesn’t matter how he handled it but he handled it. If his decision was for the player not to be involved anymore, that is it. You cannot come out publicly and criticize a player and say he was not training really well.
“What do you expect the player to do? You came out publicly, I came out publicly, why do you expect me to apologize? I think it should have been dealt with privately. If he was late to training, he wasn’t performing, there is a different way to deal with it.”
He added, “Back in the day, John Terry, this is where he got involved, he got involved in cases like this, went to the manager’s office to have a chat, brought the player because this is a player we need. Sancho is a player you kind of need.
“I’m not sitting here trying to defend Jadon but the manager has come out and thrown him under the bus.
“He needs to play, he is young, 23, he has not even reached his peak, still far away from that, but I hope they find a way to resolve it and get him back on the pitch, but if not then he has to move on”.
