Jadon Sancho might be more of a basketball man than baseball but ever since he joined Aston Villa he has been on his third strike. He flopped terribly at Manchester United even before blowing his career up over a petty dispute with Erik ten Hag. He then failed to convince on loan at Chelsea, who backed out of an agreed deal to sign him. Now he is a periphery squad member for Villa.
Sancho is still waiting to make his first Premier League start for Villa, almost four months after joining the club on loan. That maiden league start will definitely not come on Sunday against United as he is barred from playing due to the terms of his loan agreement.
It almost feels like he has been barred from the Villans' other league games too. Sancho was an unused substitute in two of Villa's last games against West Ham and Brighton and in total he has played a mere eight percent of the club's total Premier League minutes.
Joining Villa in the first place must have felt like a step down for Sancho from United and Chelsea but after a slow start Unai Emery's side are having a sensational season, winning their last nine games and unexpectedly joining the title race. Sancho is barely a part of this latest wave of success, however, and the only player having a more miserable time at Villa than him is Harvey Elliot.
More than ever, it feels like his Premier League career is slipping away from him.
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Turning into a circus
When Sancho joined Villa on loan from United on transfer deadline day, the highly-opinionated former Villa striker Stan Collymore expressed his disapproval.
"I think he's just one of those players now that Manchester United can't get rid of, because somebody won't come up and pony up a big fee or his wages to sign him permanently," he said. "He's been really disappointing since he arrived in the Premier League."
He also offered a warning: "Sancho’s got to get his head down and deliver because if he doesn't his career is just going to turn into a circus."
Collymore couldn't have been more right. Sancho's time at Villa has been a short history of unfortunate events.
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Not fit enough
His league home debut against Manchester City should have been a moment to savour as Villa beat Pep Guardiola's side but it was an embarrassing day for Sancho as Emery brought him on in the first half to cover Emi Buendia's injury and then took him off 45 minutes later.
Emery sought to spin the decision positively by insisting he was pleased with Sancho's performance but explaining that he was not yet ready to play more than one half of a game. "His impact was good, his electricity, his skill, but he's not ready fit to play 90 minutes. 45 minutes is not easy enough for him."
It was a damning assessment of Sancho's fitness levels given he had been at the club for nearly two months and had suffered no injuries in that time. But Emery's sparse use of him since then has been even more damning. Sancho has not played more than 20 minutes in any league games since.
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Making a scene
Sancho has not fared much better in the Europa League, even though the quality of the opposition is much lower than in England's top flight. He has at least started four out of six games but he has no goals or assists. His performance against Maccabi Tel Aviv was branded "disappointing" by former Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov. His last outing in a Villa shirt, away to Basel, got far more attention for his body language than his performance on the pitch.
When taken off by Emery in the second half, Sancho didn't acknowledge his manager and then punched a seat on the bench. The incident did not go down well with former Villa scout Bryan King. "It’s no good to make a scene," he said.
"Sancho looks to me as if he doesn’t want to be at Villa. If that’s the case, then cheerio. You don’t use a football club like Aston Villa as somewhere to earn money, you’re at a very big football club. There’s only so much they can tolerate."
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Not even Emery can revive him
Sancho's struggles at Villa are all the more disheartening because the club seemed like the ideal place for him to get his career back on track. And Emery felt like the ideal coach. In the words of Villa's former sporting director Monchi: "If there is a coach in European or even world football who is characterised by recovering players and getting the most out of them, it’s Unai Emery."
Emery oversaw Marcus Rashford's revitalisation at Villa Park after being forced out of United by Ruben Amorim at the start of the year and also squeezed some big moments and performances out of Marcos Asensio when he arrived in Birmingham with no proper future at Paris Saint-Germain. Donyell Malen's career was also at a crossroads when he signed for Villa last January along with Rashford and Asensio, with the Midlands club paying €25m for the forward compared with the €30m Dortmund had paid PSV Eindhoven for him in 2021.
Malen has played in all of Villa's Premier League games this season, scoring four times plus an additional three goals in the Europa League. Emery also revitalised careers at Sevilla, helping Ever Banega get back to his best after falling so low that he had returned to Argentine football before being reunited with the Basque coach, who he had worked under at Valencia. Indeed, Emery liked Banega so much that he tried to sign him for Arsenal.
Emery seemed to like the challenge of having a similar effect on Sancho and when the winger arrived, the coach pointed to his former glories. "Yes, he had some problems at Manchester United, but during his time at Borussia Dortmund, he performed fantastic," he said. "He’s still young, still hungry, and has the ability to show his skills and qualities. Hopefully, we can bring out the best in him here."
