Neil Jones has pointed to Liverpool’s prior interest in Jadon Sancho when discussing the player’s public fallout with Manchester United head coach Erik ten Hag.
The Merseysiders were understood to have taken ‘a good long look’ at the former Borussia Dortmund wideman during his days in the Bundesliga, though instead invested in alternative options.
“It is easy to look at Jadon Sancho and wonder what might have been, isn’t it?” the former GOAL reporter wrote for CaughtOffside. “I know that Liverpool, for example, had a good long look at him when he was ripping it up at Borussia Dortmund, but opted to go down a different route when recalibrating their attack, choosing less heralded (and cheaper) players such as Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz, both of whom have turned out to be successes.”
With 80 goal contributions in 179 appearances (across all competitions) collectively for the club, both Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota have more than proven their worth.
That said, one may have to wonder what will be going through the Reds’ recruitment team’s minds when observing Sancho’s steadily depreciating value.
Jones went on to add: “United are getting absolutely nothing out of Sancho at the moment, and given the money they invested in him and the talent he has, that is a serious problem, even before we think about the PR side of things. Were they to try and offload him in January, they’d be getting nowhere near the money they paid.
“Ten Hag, of course, might argue that his public criticism was an attempt to get the player’s attention and focus, a last resort, if you like, but given Sancho’s reaction it feels like that was a misguided move.
“The player clearly doesn’t agree with his assessment, or his approach, and there are no winners emerging from this situation. Sancho is sidelined, Ten Hag is without a potentially key player and United are watching the value of an asset diminish with each passing week.”
Could Liverpool revitalise their interest?
We can’t really imagine a world where Jurgen Klopp and Co. will look at the Red Devils ‘phenomenon’ (as described by talent scout Jacek Kulig on X) as the kind of talent they’d like to bring into the club – particularly in light of the fact that Dortmund themselves have also raised concerns over his character.
At 23 years of age, however, there’s not a shadow of a doubt that there’s very much still a highly gifted player there for the right club to develop and get the best out of.
A tally of 36 goal contributions registered in 38 games for BVB surely demonstrates that fact. Sancho just needs the right conditions and a supportive manager to extract that kind of value out of him once more.
Sadly for United, Old Trafford doesn’t look like the kind of environment best equipped to carry out that objective.