Aston Villa: Emery makes absurd Sancho permanent transfer decision after 82 minutes of same old sh*t
“I don’t know what Jadon Sancho is doing at the moment,” Paul Merson said in response to Jadon Sancho’s start to life at Aston Villa, with the pundit’s sentiment defining the ill-fated winger’s Premier League career to date.
The 25-year-old has only ever achieved anything like the football expected of him at Borussia Dortmund, in his four years with the Bundesliga side after being poached for £8m from the Manchester City academy in 2017 and for the six months on loan in 2024 when he played a major role in driving them to the Champions League final.
In 158 appearances across those two spells for Dortmund he racked up 53 goals and 67 assists. In 124 appearances for Manchester United and on loan at Chelsea last season he’s managed just 17 goals and 16 assists. There have been no more than a handful of games – the Chelsea win over Tottenham last season spring to mind – in which Sancho has looked like a Premier League-ready footballer.
“He’s not running at anybody, not committing people and not taking chances! Sancho needs to stop playing it safe and has to take risks with the ball at his feet. If you lose the ball, no one cares. Try and make things happen instead of just passing it around.”
Like the rest of us frustrated viewers, Merson just wants Sancho be the direct forward who was a consistent nightmare for full-backs in Germany, whose performances persuaded Manchester United to pay £73m for his services in the summer of 2021, hoodwinked Chelsea and Enzo Maresca into signing him last summer before literally paying to send him back and were still enough to persuade Unai Emery into thinking he could fix him at Aston Villa.
Sancho won’t have been alone in thinking if anyone can turn things around for him it’s Emery, who’s improved pretty much every forward he’s coached at Aston Villa, not least loanees Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford last season, whose careers were stagnating before they arrived at Villa Park.
But Jamie Redknapp said what we’re all thinking after Sancho’s limp display in the penalty shootout defeat to Brentford in the Carabao Cup last week: “I don’t think Sancho’s an upgrade on what they had with Rashford and (Marco) Asensio.”
MORE ASTON VILLA COVERAGE ON F365
👉 Aston Villa: Internal verdict on Emery outburst revealed; squad ‘insist’ on main reason for ‘worst period’
👉 Why are Liverpool flop Wirtz and Manchester United failure Sesko being called ‘007’?
👉 Aston Villa ‘agree deal’ to replace Monchi as Emery to Man Utd theory comes to light
In fact he’s got a helluva lot of work to do to show he’s not a disastrous downgrade on that pair, who were hugely impressive in the second half of last season. And although Redknapp and Merson’s respective slams of Sancho could be labelled as knee-jerk, even the Sancho apologists will struggle to suggest that what he needs is time to adapt to English football.
And yet, with Emery insisting Sancho’s poor showing against Brentford was more down to a lack of fitness than anything else, National World claim the winger has ‘already impressed enough to warrant a permanent deal’.
Villa can ‘snap him up without paying a penny’ as his United contract will have expired by the end of the season, but one would hope a club so hamstrung by departed director Monchi’s disregard for UEFA’s squad cost ratio rules in handing out huge salaries wouldn’t gift Sancho what would have to be a bumper deal on the sole basis of him not costing them anything in transfer fees.
He’s never proven himself capable of playing even half-decent Premier League football on a consistent basis, let alone for the club who’s now looking to sign him permanently after 82 minutes of the same old sh*t.
