Gareth Southgate has insisted there are other players "ahead" of Jadon Sancho in the England pecking order at this moment in time... yet the stats suggest otherwise.
Southgate has dropped the 21-year-old for this month's friendlies against Switzerland and Ivory Coast. "Jadon in the last few weeks his performances have improved but it is an area of the pitch where we have competition for places," added the manager.
But the stats disprove Southgate's analysis. Sancho has scored two goals and provided three assists in his last six Premier League games for Manchester United. Jack Grealish, who's been named in the squad, has been involved in just four league goals all season.
Fans and journalists were perplexed with Sancho's omission and it's likely Ralf Rangnick will be too. Speaking after his team's 3-2 victory against Tottenham last weekend, United's interim manager insisted the talent was back to his best.
Sancho endured a tricky start to his Red Devils career following a £73million move from Borussia Dortmund last summer but is now finding his feet under Rangnick and looks set to be a key figure in United's starting XI for years to come.
"He is now recognisable as the Jadon Sancho I have known since he was 18," said Rangnick when asked about Sancho. "This has also not always been the case, if we're honest, in the weeks and months before I came [last November].
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"Jadon Sancho is now getting closer to the Jadon Sancho I've known from Germany. In the end it's all about confidence. Game time, confidence. Confidence, game time. He was performing at a very high level.
"We can only be successful as a team. If you're not being successful, if you're not playing well as a team, tell me one single player in football who can still develop his own career. It's impossible. It's only possible with raising the level of performance of the whole team. This is what happened [against Spurs].
"With Jadon, as you know when he was 17, I was trying to convince him to join us at Leipzig. Unfortunately he decided to go to Dortmund which was not the worst choice he could make at the time. When I came here [to United] it was clear we had to try everything to help him to get the best version of himself."
Rangnick added: "The club paid quite a few pounds for him in order to lure him away from Borussia Dortmund and if you pay that amount of money in a transfer fee for a player, he should perform on this kind of level. At the end, they are all human beings. The mere fact he cost a lot of money does not mean that he is playing at that level to start with.
"He told me that of course it was a problem for him to get adjusted to the intensity of the league, to the physicality of the league. Now he has managed to do that. I'm happy to see him play at that kind of level right now."
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