When he assumed leadership at Old Trafford, Erik ten Hag reportedly imposed severe guidelines on Jadon Sancho.

After a confrontation between the winger and Ten Hag that was made public and some of which took place on social media, Sancho’s future at United is currently seen to be in doubt.

After Ten Hag stated during a news conference that Sancho’s exclusion from the team to face Arsenal was due to poor training results, the 23-year-old turned to Twitter to refute that claim. His comment was later removed.

According to The Daily Star, ‘clear-the-air conversations’ between the player and manager failed, and Sancho is now anticipated to depart United in January.

Thus, he may have already played his final game for Ten Hag, albeit the Dutch coach might have to start Sancho against Brighton on Saturday because Antony is now ruled out.

A recent story claims that Ten Hag went so far as to impose a stringent rule on Sancho last year.

Last season, Erik ten Hag gave Jadon Sancho a “strict rule” to abide by.

According to The Athletic, Ten Hag and his coaches tried to encourage Sancho to show up for practice on time by scheduling him at least an hour sooner than the other members of the first team.

The winger allegedly occasionally skipped team meetings when playing for Borussia Dortmund, and manager Edin Terzic paired him up with Erling Haaland because of the professionalism of the Norwegian.

The way Ten Hag officially portrayed Sancho’s absence from the first squad due to mental health issues at the end of last year reportedly caused some ‘alarm’ in the background.

The Dutchman allegedly thought he was being’supportive’ of the player, and United felt that not disclosing the reason for the player’s absence would have fuelled more rumors.

While others backed the winger, one England youth coach said: “Maybe they don’t wear their tracksuit bottoms exactly like everyone else, or their laces are undone, or they wear headphones, we believe they’re a nasty person and we start labeling them.

“They might be a few minutes late once or twice, but somebody else might be a few minutes late once or twice, and we’ll forgive the other person because they fit our unconscious bias.”

Not all of the players who have run afoul of Ten Hag for disciplinary issues have been Sancho. After arriving late for a squad meeting, Marcus Rashford was benched for a Premier League match against Wolves in January, and Alejandro Garnacho experienced the same fate in preseason the year before.

Overall, it seems likely that Sancho will leave United in January, capping up a challenging 2023 for the winger.