The standoff between Erik ten Hag and Jadon Sancho appears no closer to a resolution amid reports that Manchester United are open to loaning the England international to a club outside the Premier League.
Sancho has not been involved with the first team since early September, when he took to X (formerly Twitter) and posted that he was "a scapegoat" amid his omission from a 3-1 loss to Arsenal that week. Multiple reports state that Sancho will not be reintegrated into the team until he apologises to the manager, which as of Friday has not happened.
It's a distraction that the Red Devils can ill afford as they attempt to climb out of their current midtable status, and former Manchester United defender Gary Pallister says that the team would be better off with Sancho in the side.
"We don't know what happens in day-to-day life at Carrington," Pallister told OLBG.
"Erik Ten Hag said he didn't train well and that's why he wasn't in the side, that's the manager's prerogative.
"You would hope that the player would just get his head down, perform better next week in training and give him a decision to make. But that's not the case, he felt as though he was wronged and has come out and said what he said on Twitter.
"It’s not an ideal situation, especially when the club has not hit the ground running on the pitch. But Jadon Sancho on his day, when he's got his head right, is a terrific player, as we saw many times with Dortmund, as we saw with England.
"Right now, Man United need all hands to the pump and nobody's sort of rocking the boat. We could do with a fully fit and firing Jadon Sancho back in the side."
While Pallister hopes for an amicable resolution that sees the 23-year-old back into the United team, Pallister stressed that Ten Hag needs to put the club first.
If that means moving Sancho on, then so be it, he said.
"I think you've got to be in there and see what's exactly happened on a day-to-day basis on the training ground before you can make that kind of decision (selling Sancho)," Pallister continued.
"It's not just a purely footballing decision. Whether it is down to Jadon to offer an olive branch, I don't know.
"But Erik Ten Hag, I think, has been really good in his decision-making with his discipline at the club. I think it's what they’ve needed for a long time, and Sancho has fallen foul of this.
"It's an impasse at the moment and you would think that it's only the player that could maybe break that right now."