- Matic has revealed which two players angered their teammates
- He also talked about the differences in standards at Chelsea and Man United
- Manchester United have snakes in the dressing room, players who don't run. Bruce, Robson, Keane would never allow this… It all starts
Former Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic has revealed that Jadon Sancho and Paul Pogba made their teammates angry because they were always late for training.
Pogba returned to Old Trafford in 2016 for a then world record fee of £89 million but never replicated the form he showed over the past four years at Juventus and returned to Serie A as a free agent last year.
Sancho, meanwhile, has been frozen out at Old Trafford following his highly publicized row with Erik ten Hag earlier this season and looks likely to leave United in January or at the end of the season.
The 35-year-old joined the Red Devils from Chelsea in 2017 and highlighted the differences between standards at the two clubs.
“At Chelsea the players behaved professionally, they were punctual and were never late for training, but at United it happened almost every day,” he told the YouTube channel YU planet.
Nemanja Matic has revealed which two players angered their Man United teammates
The midfielder revealed that players were more likely to be late for training at United than at Chelsea
He revealed that a disciplinary committee had been set up over the frequency of tardiness
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'Among the players who were always late were Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho and a few other players.'
Sancho has been banned from working for himself after falling out with the Dutchman by publicly challenging the manager's reasons for dropping him from the squad for the match against Arsenal in September.
The England international has since refused to apologize to Ten Hag and remains unavailable for selection, with his Old Trafford career seemingly lasting well over a year after joining from Borussia Dortmund for £73 million.
The 23-year-old has been linked to a possible reunion with Pogba at Juventus, with the prospect of a return to Dortmund complicated by his wages.
Matic, who left for Roma in 2022, went into detail about his disciplinary committee as they collected money from those who were late to the training.
“The rest of us, who were always on time, were angry, so we decided to form some kind of internal disciplinary committee, of which I would be the chairman.”
However, due to the outbreak of Covid-19, the money could not be used for a party.
He continued, “I hung a sheet of paper on the wall where I wrote down the names of people who arrived late. During one season we collected around £75,000 in fines.
'We were planning to use the money to throw a party in London but that didn't happen due to the Covid outbreak.'
Matic's comments come just days after the attitude of several United players was publicly questioned following a dismal performance in the 1-0 defeat to Newcastle on Saturday evening.
Several pundits, from Paul Scholes to Roy Keane and from Jamie Carragher to Alan Shearer, questioned the lack of effort from a number of players.
'Nonsense', said Scholes for Premier League Productions. “There are too many lazy players.”
Speaking The Rest is Football podcastShearer suggested the manner of the defeat spoke volumes for the attitude of some United players.
“I thought they were a mess, I thought they were terrible,” he said.
“I thought there were three or four players yesterday who weren't willing to roll up their sleeves and gave up way too easily and didn't want to fight.”