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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Steven Chicken & Aaron Catterson-Reid

Jadon Sancho's Manchester United transfer makes him impossible for Gareth Southgate to ignore

The clamour has been unmistakable. Every time the big screen shows him sitting on the bench, the Wembley crowd goes wild.

How Jadon Sancho must long for that to be him and not Jack Grealish.

Bar some unlikely late turn of events, Sancho will be heading to Old Trafford this summer after football's worst kept secret reaches was formally confirmed by Manchester United.

The deal will reportedly be worth £72.9million, subject to personal terms and a medical upon the completion of England's Euro 2020 campaign, which could continue until July 11 if they were to make it to the final.

England booked their place in Saturday's quarter-final against Ukraine after overcoming old foes Germany on Tuesday - with goals from City star Raheem Sterling and captain Harry Kane sealing a 2-0 victory.

However, the Sancho has struggled for minutes at the tournament, playing a total of just six minutes for Gareth Southgate's side despite enjoying a hugely productive season with Dortmund with eight goals and 11 assists in 26 Bundesliga appearances.

The key part played by Sterling and Grealish in England's last 16 victory against Germany has calmed down the clamour for Sancho to start for England, but there are those who believe he should nonetheless have played a bigger part in Southgate's side this summer.

Sancho finds himself lower in the pecking order than Arsenal's Bukayo Saka and future United teammate Marcus Rashford, neither of whom can boast anything like the numbers the Dortmund winger posted last season.

German fans have been especially bemused by Sancho's absence - at least according to former Bayern Munich boss Jurgen Klinsmann.

"What makes him such a special talent is his technical capability at a very fast pace, and he is fearless - he just goes at people", Klinsmann noted in his BBC Sport column.

"Of course people who watch him for Dortmund expected him to get more of a chance at this tournament - he has had only six minutes of action so far, as a substitute against the Czech Republic."

It seems unlikely that Southgate is overlooking Sancho just because he plays abroad. Things have moved on considerably since Owen Hargreaves' constant inclusion in Sven-Goran Eriksson's plans consistently left fans scratching their heads - despite helping Bayern Munich to become champions of Europe in 2001.

Even relatively casual fans are now much more aware of how the best English talents abroad are faring, whether that be Sancho or his teammate for club and country Jude Bellingham. Southgate will know Sancho's abilities as well as he is ever going to.

But Sancho's impending move to the Premier League makes him that much harder to ignore if those impressive performances and statistics continue.

If, for instance, Sancho has a hand in 25 league goals next season while Saka has a hand in two, it becomes incredibly difficult for Southgate to justify putting the Arsenal man ahead of him in Qatar with no ambiguity over the relative standards of two different domestic competitions.

That is much easier said than done, of course, and Sancho could be forgiven if he needed a period of adaptation to get back to grips with English football.

But if he gets the job done for United, he may well find that England fans join their German counterparts in their demands to see him in action for the Three Lions.

Should Sancho be in Southgate's plans to face Ukraine or is it best to stick with the winning formula from the last 16? Have your say in the comments.

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