Fabio Borini prompted his former club Liverpool to ‘steal’ Jadon Sancho from Manchester United – now the winger is living out a nightmare at Old Trafford.

Former Liverpool striker Fabio Borini once urged the club to move for Jadon Sancho whilst still at Borussia Dortmund – before Manchester United made him a landmark signing.

The 23-year-old is living out any player’s nightmare – the result of a public argument, started when Sancho disputed the reasons manager Erik ten Hag had given to justify leaving him out of a matchday squad to face Arsenal.

Since the incident on September 3, the England international has been excluded from all activities while Ten Hag has remained tight-lipped over the situation.

Now the latest snub Sancho has suffered, as reported by the ECHO’s sister site the Manchester Evening News, is being excluded from United’s official first-team photograph.

His fate seems destined to be that of Cristiano Ronaldo’s last winter after suffering the wrath of the Dutchman, but events could have panned out entirely differently had Liverpool heeded the words of an ex-striker.

Early in 2021, before Sancho completed a £73m summer move from the Signal Iduna Park to the Reds’ fiercest rivals, Borini spoke with CaughtOffside hoping to inspire chiefs at his old club to launch an offer themselves.

Looking at Liverpool’s competitors I think more depth in the attacking positions would do the team good,” the Italian explained. “Jadon Sancho would be a great signing and it would be fun to steal him from Man United.”

Looking back at the situation, while Borini’s own goalscoring record during his three-year spell at Anfield – three goals in 38 appearances – was far from ideal, Sancho did himself manage to register 114 goal contributions in 137 matches when out in Germany so it wasn’t an entirely outlandish suggestion.

In attack Jurgen Klopp had Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, Diogo Jota, Xherdan Shaqiri and Takumi Minamino at his disposal, therefore anticipating the Swiss international’s departure that year and Minamino remaining as back-up, a deputy for Salah was understandably in the equation.