Roy Keane has his say on the Jadon Sancho/Erik ten Hag situation at Man Utd | OneFootball

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Roy Keane has finally given his thoughts on the situation that has unfolded between Jadon Sancho and Erik ten Hag at Manchester United in recent weeks. The relationship between player and manager has broken down almost completely since ten Hag left the former Borussia Dortmund winger out of his squad to face Arsenal in the Premier League.

After being asked the reasons behind Sancho's omission, the Dutch manager simply put it down to training performances not being up to standard. This didn't sit well with the England international, as he took to X (formerly Twitter) in a since deleted post where he claimed to be a 'scapegoat'.

Since then there have been reports of a meeting between the pair, in which the player refused to apologise for his conduct, and this has resulted in Sancho being frozen out of the first-team squad by his boss until the apology is made. The 23-year-old has shown no intention of making amends with his manager and has since deleted his Instagram account.

In the modern game and with the prominence of social media, this is a situation that could possibly happen at any moment, but in Keane's era, this was not the case at all. Perhaps there was more respect in the game, with very little players brave enough to speak out against Sir Alex Ferguson.

Roy Keane gives his thoughts on Jadon Sancho

In Episode one of 'Stick to Football' - a new show on The Overlap YouTube channel, the Irishman was quick to give his view on the situation as he claimed: “I don’t think he is training right." This would echo the sentiments of Ten Hag, but Keane was not done there.

Drawing on his own experience in his playing days, the 52-year-old said: "The one thing we don’t really forgive a player for… we have all worked with players who have come in, they can be grumpy or whatever, but when they are training, they are training properly."

Players would not have got away with a lack of effort on the training pitch when Keane was captaining the team, and he proves this point by explaining: “My annoyance with Sancho would be if he is not training properly. Whatever it is about his personality, we’re all different."

The ex-midfielder put himself in Sancho's shoes for a moment and claimed: “I’d be embarrassed, I’d be ashamed of my life if the manager ever came up to me, or even spoke through the media because you get over that stuff." In today's game, it is widely speculated whether managers should publicly criticise their own players, but this is a tactic that was regularly used by Ferguson and Mourinho in the past.

Can Sancho get his United career back on track?

All signs point to the apology demanded by Ten Hag, with Sancho having the decision to swallow his pride and fight his way back into the United team, or to move on and seek a new challenge. Keane does believe there can be a way back for the ex-Manchester City youth player.

Again using past experiences, the former Sunderland manager explained: “We’ve been in dressing rooms where players have come in and said: ‘Sorry lads I have made a mistake’, it is forgotten about very quickly," before going on to say: “Football dressing rooms are a strange dynamic, if a player shows they care, and they are human, it’s fine. We move on quickly.”

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