Gary Neville believes Jesse Lingard’s superb form for West Ham United could make Manchester United rethink about the England international’s future.
Lingard, who is on loan from Manchester United at West Ham, now has six goals in eight games for the Hammers, along with 3 assists as he starred once again for David Moyes’ side in their quest for Champions League football next season.
He opened the scoring against Wolves in stunning style after just six minutes when he ran 60 yards and left Leander Dendoncker and Romain Saiss trailing to beat Portuguese goalie Rui Patricio.
The 28-year-old has been in red-hot form that earned him a call back to the England squad and he has continued his form after the international break.
Lingard also played a crucial part in West Ham’s second goal, keeping the ball in play and flicking it into the path of DR Congo’s Arthur Masuaku, who crossed the ball to Pablo Fornals who found the corner of the net.
West Ham were brilliant and Lingard was at the centre of everything, as he set up Jarrod Bowen for the third, taking his total goal contributions to 10 in just 8 games for the side from East London.
Gary Neville was a Manchester United academy boy himself like Lingard. (Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
Neville was full of praise for Lingard, saying he could still have a future at Old Trafford: “What a goal! I remember (Paulo) Wanchope for Derby scoring a goal that like from one side of the pitch to the other and there’s a little bit of an element of that. He used the run of (Michail) Antonio brilliantly, takes Coady away, it’s a fantastic goal. The finish, it’s on his left foot but he just slips it into that corner. It’s a fantastic start to the game and a great goal from him.
“He does an incredible amount of running,” Neville said. “It’s what he does. He’s good out of possession and good in possession.
“At Manchester United, because there is that expectation of what you need to be, to be a wide player there, he’s always going to get a difficult press.
“But if he was playing in a world-class team, if he was, say, Ji-Sung Park 10 years ago playing with Ronaldo and Rooney, doing that supplementary role, then people would be saying he’s perfect for this squad.
“The problem is he was not playing in Manchester United teams as good as that, so he gets a bit of stick.
“He’s a really good player. He’s going to have a great career. Manchester United have sent him out to West Ham to boost his career, maybe with the thought of boosting his price tag, but they might be thinking, ‘actually, we might want him back, he could be a real help to us’.
“If Jesse wants to play, and you can see he does want to play, then he needs to leave, because he’s not going to play every single week for a Manchester United team that’s competing for second or first place in the league.
“But if he’s willing to go back there and compete and be the player that Dan [Daniel] James has been for the last few weeks, in and out, then there’s no doubt he can play for Manchester United.”
This has been a second coming for Jesse Lingard. A sort of rebirth in many ways so it remains to be seen if the Manchester United academy boy will still have a place in Ole Gunnar-Solskjaer’s squad next season after his loan term expires.
