FORMER Chelsea player John Obi Mikel has slammed Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag for ‘throwing Jadon Sancho under the bus’ as the young English star’s ongoing feud with the Dutchman continues.
It has been revealed that Man United will look to offload Sancho in January if he refuses to apologise to Ten Hag for his statements after he was dropped from the match-day squad against Arsenal.
This comes after the 23-year-old was banned from using all first-team facilities at Carrington after he claimed he was being made a ‘scapegoat’ in an online retort.
Now, former Premier League midfielder Mikel, 36, has claimed Sir Alex Ferguson would never have dealt with this type of situation in the same way.
“Everybody is going about Sancho not apologising, I have a different view on that. My view is that the manager shouldn’t have said what he said in public,’ he told The Obi One podcast.
“I wouldn’t come out publicly. When you listen to the ex-United players, they’ve all said one thing: When things like this before during [Sir Alex] Ferguson, was dealt with inside the dressing room, he handled it.
‘It doesn’t matter how he handled it but he handled it. If his decision was for the player not to be involved anymore, that’s it. You cannot come out publicly and criticise a player and say he wasn’t training really well.’
Mikel, who turned down a move to the Red Devils in 2006 in favour of Chelsea, added: “What do you expect the player to do? You came out publicly, I came out publicly, why do you expect me to apologise? I think it should have been dealt with privately.
“Back in the day John Terry, this is where he got involved, he got involved in cases like this, went to the manager’s office to have a chat, brought the player, because this is a player we need. Sancho is a player you kind of need.’
Ex-Man United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic recently questioned whether Ten Hag has fully adapted to life at the club a year on from joining from Ajax because of his treatment of ‘big stars’.
“Coming from Ajax to United as he did is a big difference. I have been in both clubs. You have a different kind of discipline,” he told Piers Morgan Uncensored.
“Ajax is a talented club. They have the best talents in the club. They don’t have big stars. What is the experience of this coach? Young talents come to United, it is a different mentality.
“You need a plan, you need a project to follow. It feels like you follow a project plan and then it goes wild in a moment because of the results.
“Either you believe in it or you don’t believe in it. But with the situation of the coach, I think he is living in two different situations now.
“Then obviously what happened with Sancho and Cristiano, I don’t know. When things are good, there are still errors and problems, but you don’t see it because we are winning.”
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