Andy Cole has criticised Erik ten Hag over his handling of Jadon Sancho at Manchester United.
Sancho faces an uncertain future at the club having denied claims from Ten Hag that he has not reached the level expected in training, while accusing the manager of using him as a ‘scapegoat’.
The winger has featured for just 77 minutes across three substitute appearances this season and Ten Hag said that Sancho was not selected for the defeat at Arsenal based on his performance in training.
Sancho took to social media to describe those claims as ‘completely untrue’ and former United striker Cole has criticised Ten Hag for increasing the negativity around the club, by speaking publicly on his issues with Sancho’s application.
“If Sir Alex Ferguson ever had a problem with a player, it didn’t leave the dressing room. So you can argue that Erik ten Hag has come out and said something negative about his player and he didn’t have to do that. If he didn’t say anything, then nobody’s getting wind of this situation,” Cole told Betfred.
“However, now he’s made the situation public, Jadon has now come out to defend himself.
“Manchester United haven’t started the season in a good way and Erik ten Hag didn’t need to create another distraction that the club doesn’t need. It just didn’t need to happen.
“All the publicity surrounding the club at the moment is negative and it can have an adverse reaction on the players because people just expect them to get their heads down and play football, but of course this negativity is going to affect them.
“Everybody is looking to the players to pull the club out of the doldrums and now they have added pressure on their shoulders because if they don’t start getting results, then everybody’s going to start complaining that the players aren’t helping the situation either.
“It’s such a precarious situation to be in and it’s something that the club needs to find themselves out of immediately if they’re going to start winning football matches.”
