John Obi Mikel slams Erik ten Hag for 'throwing Jadon Sancho under the bus' at Manchester United

Former Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel has taken aim at Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag for his handling of the fallout with Jadon Sancho, accusing the Dutchman of “throwing him under the bus”.

Sancho remains exiled from the first team for not apologising to Ten Hag following his social media statement that hit back at the manager’s decision to leave him out of the squad that faced Arsenal.

Sancho accused Ten Hag of lying and claimed he's been a “scapegoat for a long time”. The Manchester Evening News understands that the 23-year-old is open to an exit with Ten Hag standing by his press conference comments.

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Mikel - who rebuffed a United move at the last minute in favour of a Chelsea transfer in 2006 - slammed Ten Hag for his actions and made a comparison to his playing days at Stamford Bridge under Jose Mourinho.

Speaking on The Obi One podcast, he said: “I think that [calling Sancho out] should be a no-no. Everybody is going about Sancho not apologising, I have a different view on that. My view is that the manager shouldn't have said what he said in public.

"I wouldn't come out publicly. When you listen to the ex-United players they've all said one thing: When things like this happen before during [Sir Alex] Ferguson, it was dealt with inside the dressing room, he handled it.

"It doesn't matter how he handled it but he handled it. If his decision was for the player not to be involved anymore, that's it. You cannot come out publicly and criticise a player and say he wasn't training really well.

"What do you expect the player to do? You came out