Jadon Sancho has been accused of falling back into his old ways that saw him ousted at Manchester United, but Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca won’t be worried having laid down the law early
Jadon Sancho already knows what Enzo Maresca demands of him at Chelsea after Jamie O’Hara accused the winger of renewing his Manchester United woes.
Having fallen out with Erik ten Hag and plummeted from his Borussia Dortmund heyday, Sancho arrived at Stamford Bridge this summer ready to start afresh and hit the ground running. However, illness, a dip in form and now an injury have kept him out of Maresca’s squad for the last few matches.
He could now be in contention with the international break done and dusted. This hasn’t stopped former Tottenham and Wolves man O’Hara from claiming that Sancho has returned to his “old ways” that saw him exiled at Old Trafford, with his loan move set to be made permanent next summer.
Yet these comments will be of no concern to Maresca – who laid down the law in a telling, hearts-on-sleeves talk with the 24-year-old before his west London arrival. He and Sancho have been aligned on a similar wavelength since his opening phone call, which set out exactly what was to be expected of the winger.
“Listen, we have Jadon, these kinds of players. Before they joined, I had a chat with them, and one of my messages was if you come here and don’t work properly, you are not going to play,” Maresca admitted in September, two weeks after Sancho’s arrival.
“The message was clear. For Jadon. I said, ‘the reason I’m speaking to you is that I really like you. If you come here in the way that we want, we are happy. But if you come there and don’t work hard, it’s better if you don’t come’.”
In the wake of Sancho’s early season form – which saw him notch three assists in his first three Premier League starts – diminishing, O’Hara issued a condemnation.
“Jadon Sancho’s been given an opportunity at Chelsea to prove people wrong, but it hasn’t happened yet,” O’Hara told Grosvenor Sport. “I think Enzo Maresca has worked out that Sancho isn’t as good as a lot of them.
“Manchester United spent a lot of money on him, and it didn’t work out, so he’s gone to Chelsea and showed signs of brilliance and confidence at the start, but he seems to have fallen back into his old ways since.
“I think the problem with Sancho at Chelsea is that there are better players than him in that squad – Pedro Neto and Noni Madueke are more influential than him. He needs to try and produce moments when he gets the chance to impress, or he’ll stay where he is in the pecking order.”
With illness and injuries hampering Sancho lately, only time will tell whether his attitude has contributed to his lack of game time, though Maresca stayed positive in the summer when describing the 24-year-old’s early work.
“Jadon has been working well with us since he arrived. I love Jadon, I love the players we have,” Maresca previously added. “I knew him in terms of a player and what I have seen in two weeks is exactly what I expected.
“With the way we play he is that kind of player who can help us a lot, especially in the last third – when we arrive there so many times and need more quality, more patience, more accuracy.”
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