The ex-Man United genius free agent signing who could take Crystal Palace to the next level

Only Jadon Sancho and those who have shared a dressing room with him truly know why everything has gone so badly wrong over the past five years. A player who once seemed to be on the fast track towards stardom is now a free agent, his future up in the air and his prospects looking more limited than anyone could have imagined when he moved to Old Trafford in 2021.

Still just 26 years of age, Sancho struggled to find consistent form during loan spells at Aston Villa and Chelsea, and still hasn’t recaptured the spark which made him seem so promising at Borussia Dortmund – and which earned him 23 England caps before the wheels fell off after he joined Manchester United for a reported £73m transfer fee.

Although the transfer window has closed, Sancho can still sign for a new team as a free agent and reports suggest that at least two Premier League teams have already been in touch. The identities of those teams are unknown, but this may be Sancho’s last chance to re-establish himself as a player capable of competing at the highest level, and taking the right next step will likely prove to be crucial. So where might he end up – and why might Crystal Palace be the perfect landing spot?

What comes next for free agent Jadon Sancho?

TEAMtalk are among the media outlets to claim that Premier League sides have reached out to Sancho’s representatives about a move, while The Daily Mirror claim that UAE second-tier side Arabian Falcons – managed by former Liverpool and Newcastle midfielder Jonjo Shelvey – have also been in touch. Sancho’s options might be more limited than they were five years ago, but he’s likely to have quite a few of them.

The top flight’s biggest teams can likely be ruled out at this point, and few of them have a glaring need for a left winger in any case. Quite a few mid-table teams and those likely to be concerning themselves with the relegation battle could, however, be prepared to bet on their ability to unearth Sancho’s best form again, and at the very least could provide him with a way to avoid being coached by Shelvey. That’s an indignity that Sancho probably doesn’t deserve.

Whatever went wrong for Sancho – whether it be mental, physical, or attitudinal – there is little doubt that he has plenty of talent. He also has time to mould himself back into being the player that most observers assumed would be a staple of the England set-up for a decade or more.

There wasn’t too much evidence of that player on show at Aston Villa last season. He managed just one goal (against Fenerbahçe in the Europa League) in addition to three assists, and started just nine Premier League games. He didn’t look like a player who had much self-belief left.

Given that his greatest strength was always his ball-carrying ability, the fact that he attempted an average of just 1.3 dribbles per game was concerning. Sancho seemed unwilling to take risks and attack defenders as he had once done with such apparent confidence. In short, the team that gives Sancho another chance will be taking on a reclamation project rather than a player who’s in a position to contribute immediately.

Why Crystal Palace could be the kind of team Sancho needs to join

Nobody truly knows exactly why Sancho’s form fell away so badly after he signed for Manchester United. The player himself seldom gives interviews and hasn’t gone into detail about why he believes that he failed at Old Trafford, but perhaps the only thing that’s certain is that United tried to turn Sancho into a different type of player – a true wide player, rather than a player who typically attacked through the centre of the pitch, as he was at Dortmund.

The same issue persisted at Chelsea and Aston Villa, where he was still deployed as a true winger, hugging the touchline in the same position he failed to convince in over the course of five long seasons. At Dortmund, he was down on the teamsheet as a wide forward but had license to drop into deeper areas and surge at the defence from narrower angles.

Perhaps, then, the best landing spot for Sancho, in the Premier League at least, might be a team like Crystal Palace whose attack generally stays quite narrow, and who use wing-backs to create width instead of their front three. Any move which gets Sancho back into the centre of the action rather that sat on the fridges might just help him to rediscover that long-lost form.

Pierre Sage’s 3-4-3 system, a continuation of that used by Oliver Glasner before he left for Nottingham Forest, could well suit Sancho in a way that Manchester United’s didn’t – or, for that matter, Chelsea or Aston Villa’s. And they could use some reinforcements on the flanks. Yérémy Pino is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting down the left if Palace don’t find a back-up of some kind, and they’re now restricted to signing free agents until January.

A team like Palace tick certain tactical boxes and have a need for a player like Sancho, but the job of rebuilding his confidence and helping him to dig out the thrilling, piratical player who tormented so many defenders in Germany will require the right kind of coaching and personal handling – something that he plainly hasn’t received recently, or at least hasn’t been receptive to in some way.

Whether Palace are among the teams that are involved in discussions remains to be seen, but they provide the template for the kind of club that would make sense for Sancho and who might just be willing to give him a shot. At the very least, they’d probably make for a better next step that Arabian Falcons…