Jadon Sancho hit back at Manchester United coach Erik ten Hag’s statement that he was dropped during his team’s Premier League defeat to Arsenal after performing poorly in training, saying he had been “made a scapegoat.”
Jadon Sancho was not included in the squad for the trip to the Emirates and Ten Hag said after the match that the winger had failed to meet standards in training this week.
“Regarding his performance in training, we didn’t select him,” said Ten Hag when asked about Sancho’s absence from the squad as quoted by ESPN.
“You have to reach that level every day at Manchester United. You can make choices up front, so in this match he was not selected.”
But within an hour of Ten Hag’s comments in the post-match press conference, Sancho issued a statement on the X platform to refute Ten Hag’s statements.
“Please don’t believe everything you read! I won’t let people say things that are completely untrue,” Sancho wrote.
“I have done very well in training this week.
“I’m sure there are other reasons in this matter that I won’t go into, I’ve been the scapegoat for so long and it’s not fair!”
Sancho added, “All I want to do is play football with a smile on my face and contribute to my team.”
Added-time goals from Declan Rice and Gabriel Jesus sealed a dramatic win for Arsenal and handed United their second defeat of the season following a 2-0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur on August 19.
After saying post-match that midfielder Scott McTominay had missed the game due to illness, Ten Hag said Sancho, who was sent to the Netherlands to train separately from the squad last season, had been left out in Manchester after failing to impress in training last week.
Without Sancho, United performed well and looked like they were going to get a 1-1 draw until Rice and Jesus scored late in the match.
“A [Arsenal] penalty was awarded but rejected, but [Kai Havertz] didn’t get a yellow card because of that,” Ten Hag said.
“There was a foul on [Rasmus] Hojlund in the penalty area, not even noticed by VAR. And the disallowed goal from Garnacho, it was from the wrong angle, I thought it was onside. Arsenal’s second goal – how could they let it go? goal? That was a clear foul on Jonny Evans.
“I think we deserved to win this game, but you don’t always get what you deserve. I look more at how we went and if you look from the Wolves game to this game, there was big progress. Tonight was a team, I really pleased with this performance and our performance progress.”
“We are doing well, we are making progress, sticking to the plan and believing and in the future we will win games like this.”
