'Why do you expect me to apologise?' - Mikel blasts Man Utd boss Ten Hag for throwing Sancho under the bus

Former Chelsea midfielder and retired Nigeria international John Obi Mikel ha insisted that Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag was in the wrong for publicly criticizing Jadon Sancho and stressed that it doesn't make sense for the winger to apologize to the Dutch football tactician.

After the 3-1 defeat to Arsenal in September, Ten Hag told the media that Sancho was left out of the match day squad because he was not meeting the professional standards expected of a Manchester United player, citing poor training as the reason for his absence.

Shortly after Ten Hag's statement, Sancho took to social media to defend himself, accusing Ten Hag of making him a scapegoat for the team's underperformance and outright denying the claims about his training habits.

Manchester United reacted by placing him on a personal training programme away from the first-team group pending resolution of the squad discipline issue.

Mikel underlined that Ten Hag's comments were unacceptable and to buttress his point, he revealed that Jose Mourinho never criticized him specifically in public but privately during his days at Chelsea. 

"Yes, I think that should be a no-no. Everybody is going about Sancho not apologizing, I have a different view on that. My view is that the manager shouldn't have said what he said in public," Mikel said on The Obi One pocast.

"I wouldn't come out publicly. When you listen to the ex-United players they've all said one thing. When things like this happen before during Ferguson, it 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 criticize a player and say he wasn't training really well.

"What do you expect the player to do? You came out publicly, I came out publicly, why do you expect me to apologize? I think it should have been dealt with privately. If he was late to training, he wasn't performing, there's a different way to deal with it.

"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."

Sancho reportedly jetted to New York, United States to attend the birthday party of NBA basketball star John Wall before the close of the transfer window in Saudi Arabia,

Reacting to the incident, Mikel said: "I'm not sitting here trying to defend Jadon but the manager has come out and thrown him under the bus.

"There has been few bad results, team is not playing well. The manager thought I'm going to find a scapegoat. I don't know how this is going to go but I hope they find a way to resolve it because he's a top player.

"He needs to play, he's young, 23, he hasn't even reached his peak, still far away from that, but I hope they find a way to resolve it and get him back on the pitch, but if not then he has to move on".

Signed from Borussia Dortmund for a fee of 85 million euros in the summer of 2021, Sancho has registered 12 goals and six assists in 82 appearances for Manchester United.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel 

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