Jadon Sancho will get what he needs from Erik ten Hag at Manchester United

There were plenty of caveats to Jadon Sancho's difficult first season at Manchester United, plenty of reasons to explain his struggle.

After a youth career that contained its fair share of highs and lows, Sancho found peace and security at Borussia Dortmund for four years. There's hardly a better place for a player to develop between the ages of 17 and 21; the German club is renowned for giving youth its chance and Bundesliga defences can be fairly accommodating at times.

Not that Sancho has ever been short of confidence, nor ability. You don't notch 38 goals in 82 Dortmund starts from the wing if you lack talent, you don't break into the England setup as a teenager, or earn a £73million transfer to United as a 21-year-old for that matter.

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But the caveats about his maiden year at Old Trafford do hold water, to a degree. Playing under three managers — after seeing the first, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the man who wanted to sign him for so long, sacked by November — might well have been unsettling for Sancho.

Although he appeared to hit his stride in the early days of the Ralf Rangnick tenure, there were more difficulties to come last season for Sancho. He finished it sidelined with tonsillitis, after a family bereavement a few weeks earlier.

If these sound like excuses for Sancho's meagre return of just five goals in his debut United season, then that's exactly what they are. And they're justified to a degree.

But there's still a sense around the former Manchester City academy man that he will thrive under new boss Erik ten Hag in the coming season and beyond. Few United fans are expressing concerns about Sancho the way they are about