Manchester United and Jadon Sancho will get nothing out of Borussia Dortmund loan

For Jadon Sancho and Manchester United, it was a case of anywhere is better than here in the January transfer window. The winger hasn't played for four months and for the club it wasn't a good look to have a £73million footballer training on his own.

It is a deeply unsatisfactory end - for now - to Sancho's Old Trafford career, but the truth is he has rarely come close to justifying that price tag and transforming his Bundesliga form to the Premier League. His public falling out with Erik ten Hag at the start of September has put paid to any immediate chance of that happening.

Sancho has stubbornly refused to apologise for rejecting his manager's claims that he was out of the squad due to poor performances in training. Ten Hag has never wavered from his stance that the 23-year-old would remain isolated in the academy unless he retracted his social media comments.

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For at least a couple of months now, this has been the only possible outcome. There is no way back for Sancho at United while Ten Hag remains in charge, so he had to go this month.

But a return to Dortmund, while solving a short-term problem for both parties, isn't an ideal solution. Yes, it will allow United to recoup some of the player's weekly salary and it will give Sancho the chance to play again, but we aren't going to learn anything we didn't already know in the next six months.

Sancho was supreme for Dortmund before joining United. Between 2017 and 2021 he scored 50 goals and laid on 58 more in 137 appearances. But that level hasn't transferred to United, so even if he returns to that kind of form, is it going