Romano describes ‘tense situation’ at Man Utd and reveals Chelsea were offered Sancho swap deal
Fabrizio Romano is expecting a meeting between Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag and Jadon Sancho this week after winger’s social media outburst.
Sancho didn’t travel with the Man Utd squad for their 3-1 defeat to Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday with Declan Rice and Gabriel Jesus’ injury time goals putting the Red Devils to the sword.
His absence left many wondering why he’d been left out of the squad after coming off the bench in all three of Man Utd’s first three Premier League fixtures.
“Jadon, on his performances in training we did not select him,” Ten Hag said of Sancho is his post-match press conference.
“You have to reach a level every day at Manchester United and we can make choices in the front line. So for this game he was not selected.”
But, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sancho hit back: “Please don’t believe everything you read! I will not allow people saying things that is completely untrue, I have conducted myself in training very well this week.
“I believe there are other reasons for this matter that I won’t go into, l’ve been a scapegoat for a long time which isn’t fair! “All I want to do is play football with a smile on my face and contribute to my team.
“I respect all decisions that are made by the coaching staff, I play with fantastic players and (am) grateful to do so which I know every week is a challenge.
“I will continue to fight for this badge no matter what!”
And now Romano has brought us an update on the situation at Man Utd and has revealed that Sancho was offered to Chelsea as part of a swap deal for Marc Cucurella.
Romano said on his YouTube channel: “Erik ten Hag didn’t Jadon Sancho in Manchester United’s squad to face Arsenal over the weekend. And after the game Ten Hag mentioned that this happened because it was a decision based on training.
“So he was not happy at the situation of Jadon Sancho and the way he was training during the week. He mentioned that at Manchester United you always have to reach the level and this is why he was not selected.
“After a couple of hours, Jadon Sancho replied with a public statement, a very stong statement, by mentioning ‘don’t trust everything you read about me’ and about him fighting for this badge.
“So a very long statement in which Sancho was basically denying any story from Erik ten Hag on the training approach from the player – but he was mentioning that probably there are other reasons that he can’t mention in public.
“A really tense situation and what I can mention is that this tension around Jadon Sancho was already there in the last two or three weeks.
“Erik ten Hag, and not just Erik ten Hag himself, but also other people on his staff were not so happy with the level of training of Jadon Sancho, so they were expecting something different.
“But it is also true that Jadon Sancho’s position is very clear: he believes that there is something else not related to his training performance and this is why he was not selected for the game with Arsenal.
“He doesn’t want to mention that, as he said in the public statement, but the situation looks tense between Ten Hag and Sancho. Also Ten Hag believes he did his best to help Sancho in a difficult moment last season, so he wants Jadon Sancho to perform in the best way possible, otherwise he is not going to be part of the squad.
“Speaking to sources who are close to Sancho insist that he’s doing his best and they believe it was a different decision. We will have to see how it will evolve, for sure the situation remains tense.
“We can also confirm that the answer from Manchester United after the statement of Sancho was like the message from the manager after the game, it was pretty clear, ‘we stand with what the manager said in the press conference’.
“Now what we expect is a direct face-to-face contact between Ten Hag and Sancho to clarify this issue already this week. So let’s see how that will go, what kind of conversation there will be and we will know more. Let’s see also how the player will react.
Romano added: “I want to touch also on one more point guys because we had rumours about Jadon Sancho to Chelsea in the final weeks of the transfer window, when we had multiple rumours about wingers for Chelsea.
“All the wingers in the world were mentioned for Chelsea and then I told you exclusively about Cole Palmer and he was the player decided by Chelsea.
“But for Jadon Sancho, what happened with Chelsea? It was not something close, it was not a top target. The name of Jadon Sancho only came on the table when Man Utd and Chelsea discussed about [Marc] Cucurella. So there was the name of Sancho on the table as like a possible name to include in a swap deal with Cucurella to United.
“But it was never something asked by Chelsea and it was never something concrete, close or advanced. It was just a normal discussion club to club, something in football that happens all the time if there is a swap deal, so you can propose different names – but it was never something concrete or close.
