Jadon Sancho is not again to his finest – it takes multiple sport to show price

Jadon Sancho is back to his best. He must be. Everyone is saying it. The evidence? One game it seems. That’s enough these days. One game.

Next week he may be finished if he doesn’t have a good performance in the second leg. Because one game decides it all apparently. A Champions League semi-final, no less. That’s when the big players do perform. On the biggest stages.

But Sancho had the big stage at Manchester United. He fluffed his lines there time and time again. Now back at Borussia Dortmund he’s supposedly back playing with freedom and with his mojo.

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Yet if you dig a little deeper into his return to the Bundesliga, it’s not been quite so good. The stats aren’t great. Three goals and two assists but football is not just about stats, as hard as that is to believe these days.

Yet to the eye, those who have watched him don’t believe he’s anywhere near the player who Dortmund sold to United back in 2021.

Maybe his display in Dortmund’s 1-0 win over Paris St-Germain is a sign that he can still shine brightly. It is a positive, that’s what it should be seen as.

But a sign that United made an error in allowing him to leave on loan and give potentially departing manager Erik ten Hag rule over a £75m asset such control? Let’s not be hasty.

Whatever the issues at United this season and in the past, Sancho has been under three managers now with three different styles and flattered to deceive more times than he shone brightly.

That’s on him as much as it is on his managers. Like Marcus Rashford, he is a player who blows hot and cold too often to be considered among the best.

Now whatever has happened with Ten Hag and who is in the wrong can be debated until you’re all blue in the face. The manager made a mess of the situation and should have coaxed him back rather than rule with an iron fist.

But the player was happy to sit it out while the club paying him the cost of a three-bed semi in Manchester a week were struggling with form and injuries.

If there’s supposedly a need for a change of culture at Old Trafford then maybe that’s something to think about, too. Hopefully Sancho puts in another stellar display against PSG this week and continues to show he has what it takes to be a world-class player the money spent on him suggests he is.

He’s still only 24, too. There’s time to turn around a career. But it wasn’t turned around by one performance. No matter how many times you read it this week.

Arsenal good but nothing new

Arsenal are mastering the dark arts apparently. They’re doing it thanks to a set-piece coach. It is genius stuff that’s earth shattering. It has even led to them being accused of CHEATING.

What are they doing? Sticking a big man on the keeper at corners.

Getting said big man to try to annoy and distract said keeper by messing with his gloves. Where did they get this set piece coach from? The local Sunday league team?

Because that sort of stuff happens up and down the country on every park that has a football game. It has been done for decades.

No doubt this Arsenal set-piece coach is making a difference given they’ve scored more goals from dead balls than any other team. But I doubt the Gunners pay him to tell Ben White to stand near the keeper and try to undo his gloves.

He’s earning his pay packet with more considered plans than that. And cheating? Do us a favour. It’s every bit as part of football as the nets that hang from the goalposts.

ONSIDE

Andoni Iraola. Started with nine games without a win. Turned in Bournemouth’s best Premier League performance. Good manager.

OFFSIDE

Mo Salah. Lost his cool at the wrong time, even if incident blown out of proportion.