Man Utd: Mikel explains ‘different view’ to Sancho saga after Ten Hag did what a manager ‘cannot’

Former Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel has criticised Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag for his part in the fallout between himself and Jadon Sancho.

Yes, believe it or not, this nonsense is still a huge talking point. It all unraveled during an international break and Ten Hag and Sancho have still not kissed and made up as we enter another one.

As you surely know already, Ten Hag decided to publically criticise Sancho’s performances in training, explaining that this is why he was not included in the matchday squad for the Premier League defeat at Arsenal on September 3.

The England winger was not best pleased with his manager’s comments, taking to social media to call the Dutchman a ‘liar’.

This bold response has resulted in the player being banished from the first team and it looks like he will not return until he apologises to Ten Hag.

More than a month on from the now deleted X (formerly Twitter) post, surely if Sancho had any intention to say sorry, he would have done it by now.

Some have defended the 23-year-old by claiming Ten Hag should not have publically criticised him, and Mikel – who turned down a move to United in 2006 – is the latest to say this is the case.

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Speaking on The Obi One podcast, the ex-Chelsea man said: “Everybody is going about Sancho not apologising, I have a different view on that. My view is that the manager shouldn’t have said what he said in public.

“I wouldn’t come out publicly. When you listen to the ex-United players they’ve all said one thing: When things like this happen before during [Sir Alex] 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’s it. You cannot come out publicly and criticise a player and say he wasn’t training really well.”

Mikel added: “What do you expect the player to do? You came out publicly, I came out publicly, why do you expect me to apologise? I think it should have been dealt with privately.

“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.”

Discipline was a massive issue at Manchester United before Ten Hag took over in May 2022, and the Dutch manager has been sure to implement his disciplinarian approach at Old Trafford.

It has not been easy, though, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s explosive interview with Piers Morgan last year and now everything that is going on with Sancho.

While a no-nonsense approach from Ten Hag has been necessary, there appears to still be a lot of work to do to transform the atmosphere and solve the player power issues in the dressing room.

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