5 times Jadon Sancho has aimed savage digs at Manchester United

Chelsea winger Jadon Sancho has once again made headlines by further souring his relationship with Manchester United with another dig at his parent club on social media.

The jury remains out on whether the 24-year-old will kick on and make a success of his time at Stamford Bridge, but it’s safe to say that he’s burned his bridges with United with an obligatory clause to sign for Chelsea at the end of the season.

Here are five times that Sancho has thrown shade at Manchester United:

Marcus Rashford

When his former team-mate Marcus Rashford was frozen out by Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim back in December, Sancho decided to fight his old pal’s corner as opposed to diplomatically stay out of the matter.

Sancho found himself in a similar situation last season and took to Twitter to echo the thoughts of Arsenal legend Ian Wright, who backed Rashford to go and flourish elsewhere.

Marcus Rashford (again)

Sancho commented “Freedom ” on Rashford’s latest Instagram post, following his debut for Aston Villa in their FA Cup victory over Tottenham.

Chelsea’s obligation to buy makes the issue moot, but you can’t imagine Amorim and Sancho getting along, given the issues that his predecessor Erik ten Hag famously had with the winger.

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Bench

Apart from his public backing of Rashford, Sancho has generally remained tight-lipped when it comes to his parent club over the course of his loans away to Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea over the past 12 months.

That leaves us reading between the lines a bit – and in true tabloid-speak, any barbs, digs or shade thrown at the Red Devils have tended to be described as “subtle” or “thinly-veiled”. This one certainly belongs in that category.

A few months back, a TikTok from the official Chelsea account did the rounds of their players responding to the question “what’s the easiest position to play in football?”.

Most of the Blues squad went with playful jibes at their team-mates within earshot, with Cole Palmer answering “CDM” and Christopher Nkunku saying “central defender”.

Sancho took a different tack and cheekily answered “being on the bench”, a playful spin on his time on the fringes at Old Trafford.

Chelsea Players were asked what is the easiest position to play in Football.

Watch what Sancho said😭😭 pic.twitter.com/tit1cKzCbB

— Chelsea Script (@Chelseascript) October 7, 2024

Moving on

“THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER” Sancho posted on his personal Instagram page, back in happier times, after the long-running transfer saga finally ended in the summer of 2021. The caption accompanied a picture of a smiling Sancho posing in the United kit for the first time.

The post inevitably racked up tens of thousands of likes, but it now no longer exists – and nor do any other posts of Sancho in United colours.

Long gone are the days of people updating their relationship status on Facebook, nowadays replaced by the quietly maudlin act of deleting all the old pictures of your ex.

This is the football equivalent of that, and we’re surprised Sancho’s first Chelsea pics weren’t accompanied by ‘new year, new me’ or something similarly Live Laugh Love in tone.

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Chelsea

Another one for the ‘reading between the lines’ category, you imagine the diligent press officers at Dortmund and Chelsea (wisely) shielded Sancho from ever addressing the messy details of where exactly things went wrong at Manchester United.

But every positive noise the 24-year-old has made about life away on loan has (inevitably) been interpreted by content-hungry football outlets as a coded message of what he wasn’t getting at United.

“From the very first day, [Chelsea] made me feel welcome,” Sancho told Ian Wright shortly after making the switch to Stamford Bridge.

“I know I have a lot of people to prove wrong, and I’m just working hard every day in training. When I get my opportunity, I try to show what I can do.

“Again, I’m just taking it game by game, and hopefully, I can continue this form. I have to say thank you to the whole Chelsea team and the staff for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to play.”