Ralf Rangnick has defended Jadon Sancho’s early season form and claimed it was difficult for anyone to develop in a losing Manchester United team.
The Red Devils splashed out £73million to sign Sancho from Borussia Dortmund last summer, ending a pursuit which stretched for more than 12 months.
But the England international failed to hit the ground upon his return to the Premier League and found himself in and out of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ’s starting XI.
Coincidentally, his first goal involvement didn’t come until two days after the Norwegian was sacked as manager on November 21.
In the two games immediately following his departure, the 21-year-old chalked up a goal and an assist, but it’s only been in the last month that he has truly started to show a run of consistent form.
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Since the start of February, Sancho has five goal involvements in seven Premier League appearances, with his latest coming via an assist for Cristiano Ronaldo in the thrilling 3-2 win over Tottenham.
And Rangnick believes he is now beginning to resemble the player that tore the Bundesliga to pieces for the last three seasons and argued the circumstances around the end of Solskjaer’s tenure, with the team struggling, had made it difficult for him to shine.
“He is now recognisable as the Jadon Sancho I have known since he was 18,” Ragnick told the club’s website. “Yes, this has also not always been the case, if we're honest, in the weeks and months before I came.
“Jadon Sancho is now getting closer to the Jadon Sancho I've known from Germany. In the end it's all about confidence.
“Game time, confidence. Confidence, game time. He was performing at a very high level.
“We can only be successful as a team. If you're not being successful, if you're not playing well as a team, tell me one single player in football who can still develop his own career.
“It's impossible. It's only possible with raising the level of performance of the whole team. This is what happened [against Spurs].”
In fairness to Solskjaer, he did suggest that it would take some time for the forward to adapt to the rigours of the English top flight, a prediction which is now bearing fruit. And his successor has now revealed that Sancho himself accepted he had to have a period of adjustment to his new surroundings.
“This is what he should be,” Rangnick added. “The club paid quite a few pounds for him in order to lure him away from Borussia Dortmund and if you pay that amount of money in a transfer fee for a player, he should perform on this kind of level.
“At the end, they are all human beings. The mere fact he cost a lot of money does not mean that he is playing at that level to start with.
“He told me that of course it was a problem for him to get adjusted to the intensity of the league, to the physicality of the league. Now he has managed to do that. I'm happy to see him play at that kind of level right now."
