Clearly, if Ten Hag remains as United boss, Sancho must go.
In his interview in South Africa last week, United coach Benni McCarthy explained why Sancho has refused to apologise to Ten Hag; he regards saying sorry as offering justification for his manager’s initial claim he had not trained well enough in the build-up to the Arsenal game.
If Ten Hag leaves, it opens up the possibility of Sancho returning.
Yet, the reality is that under Ten Hag and before that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the 24-year-old has barely even shown flashes of the form he has produced with Borussia Dortmund, where he seems so at home and at ease.
The financial reality of the situation is that it is cleaner for United to sell Sancho in preference to loaning him out, but that would involve taking a massive cut from the £73m they spent on the England wide-man in 2021.
It doesn’t look as though there are many positive ways forward for United in terms of striking a deal but certainty over Ten Hag’s future will at least provide clarity over the way forward.
