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Jadon Sancho’s time at Manchester United has so far failed to live up to expectations and Paul Scholes has suggested that part of the problem is that the player is yet to settle into a position.
Speaking to Webby & O’Neill, Scholes admitted that he does not believe that Erik ten Hag knows Sancho’s best position yet.
“Jadon’s played in the middle at times as a number ten,” he said. “I really don’t see him in that position. I see him off the left-hand side really. I know he played on the right-hand side at Dortmund and was brilliant.”
It has been typical to cast Sancho as a winger and leave it at that, but that might be something of a mistake. Paul Scholes even goes on to say, “Jadon is not the quickest but he’s quick enough.
“He’s got the ability and the skill and the cleverness of mind to link with players.”
Without realising it, the treble winner has listed some of the most common attributes of a genuine number ten, rather than those of a winger.
And as Carl Anka writes for The Athletic, Sancho can use those attributes to be “a lock-picker when he plays as a No 10, whereas Fernandes’ all-action style focuses on blowing the door off its hinges.”
He is certainly in agreement with this writer, who has been banging the drum of a central Sancho for almost half a year now. As written in The Peoples Person in December, the players best moments tend to come when he finds himself in central positions.
His love for the half spaces has also been discussed. The former Dortmund winger is excellent in combination play and happy to play in the eye of the needle – a different approach to Fernandes’ direct chance creation.
It is good to have options, and the fact that Sancho and Bruno Fernandes are both able to offer different things when playing in the hole can be a valuable asset to United.
Ten Hag has shown a real enthusiasm for challenging players to play in different positions and will often switch around his on-field attackers throughout the course of a match in order to constantly pose different questions of the opposition defence.
With Bruno Fernandes getting plenty of minutes on the wing this season, a fluid attack involving the pair switching positions regularly over the course of the match will be hard for defences to deal with, if United can pull it off.
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