Manchester United were absolutely desperate to sign Jadon Sancho and finally snapped up the English prodigy from Borussia Dortmund in July 2021 for £74 million ($92m). Since then, though, the winger has desperately struggled to justify his sky-high price tag.
Things just didn't click consistently under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and interim boss Ralf Rangnick could not get the best out of him either, despite the pair sharing a German connection. However, Sancho's United career has stooped to even greater lows under Erik ten Hag.
After missing a sizeable chunk of the 2022-23 campaign due to "mental and physical struggles", Sancho has scarcely featured this season and was even left out of the matchday squad entirely for his side's 3-1 defeat against Arsenal on Sunday.
During his post-match press conference, Ten Hag explained that his omission was a result of his training performances, leading to the 23-year-old hitting back at his manager after the game on social media. "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, I've been a scapegoat for a long time which isn't fair," Sancho wrote.
What happens next in this sorry saga remains to be seen, but there's nothing new about players and managers falling out. And as the examples below demonstrate, in the modern era it's not always the coaches that come out on top...
