The midfielder used to
be Manchester United's lucky charm, but as they face Liverpool this weekend
Jesse Lingard would be lucky to score against anyone at all
The last
time Manchester United visited Anfield, Jesse Lingard scored. Of
course, he did. It was Jose Mourinho’s last stand and he picked a bizarre team
including Matteo Darmian as a center-back and excluding Paul Pogba. Liverpool
racked up 36 shots.
But
Lingard scored and it scarcely ranked as a surprise. Back then, he was
Manchester United’s big-game Jesse a player who scored a disproportionate
proportion of goals on the major stages. Football fans can purchase Premier League Football Tickets online
to enjoy its stunning performances.
A couple of weeks
earlier he had scored against Arsenal. A month later he did again in the
FA Cup.
Jesse Lingard past performance
In three years he
scored four times against Arsenal, twice against Chelsea, once each against Liverpool,
Holland, and Croatia as well as finding the net in the FA Cup final the League
Cup final and the Community Shield.
He was more likely to
score at Wembley than Burnley. It was a distinctly useful habit to have
for a Manchester United or England player. If Romelu Lukaku was accused of
being a flat-track bully, Lingard prospered on altogether rougher terrain.
Not anymore. As Manchester United return to Anfield on
Sunday, the chances are that they would settle for a goal against anyone.
Lingard’s sole strike this season came against Astana, in a team including
Dylan Levitt, Ethan Laird, and Di’Shon Bernard who may be destined to be the
answer to future quiz questions.
He ended 2019 with
fewer assists and as many goals in Manchester United’s league games
than Huddersfield’s Jonas Lossl: he was not even the most potent man
with his initials when another one was a goalkeeper.
His last taste of the
sort of occasion that used to define him was curtailed after 45 minutes.
Lingard was substituted with Manchester City 3-0 up in the derby; his camp was
suspiciously quick to claim he was still suffering from illness.
His previous such
outing came against his usual victims, Arsenal. This time, however, Lingard was
wretched and removed. Ryan Giggs suggested he lacked footballing intelligence
and compared him unfavorably with Mesut Özil.
Euro 2020 Ineluctability
The decline of Lingard has
been a theme of the last year. He was one of England’s breakout stars of the
2018 World Cup. As it stands, he is unelectable for Euro 2020.
He was one of the
emblematic players of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s early surge; the Norwegian gave
Lingard his debut in the reserves and the Englishman scored twice to give the
caretaker a flying start in his managerial bow with the first team.
Then Solskjaer’s
rhetoric was laced with references to Jesse and ‘Rashy’; Marcus Rashford
remains as symbolic but Lingard has been displaced by Mason Greenwood and
Brandon Williams among the homegrown personifications of homegrown Untidiness.
There are mitigating
circumstances, injuries, and illness of being a new father and having to care
for his younger brother and sister when his mother was unwell.
Yet Lingard has fallen out
of favor with the fanbase the obscene video he posted on social media in the
summer scarcely helped and a talisman has become a target.
His persona may not
help. His JLingz closing brand made a £200,000 loss in a year, who knew other
people didn’t want to dress like Lingard? Although, like most things, it may be
forgiven and forgotten if Manchester United were profiting on the
pitch.
That stunning lack of
end product feels ridiculous in an attacking midfielder winger or a No. 10 for
United and if Juan Mata and Andreas Pereira fall far short of the numbers
United should require, they are still outdoing Lingard.
Pereira has perhaps
leapfrogged him as the hard-running, pressing No. 10. Lingard was never a
creative one anyway.
Those limitations have
become more glaringly apparent as Manchester United has struggled to find a way
of playing beyond counter-attacking.
Pogba Importance for Manchester United
Lingard has contrived
to make the missing Pogba more important. Minus the Frenchman, Manchester United’s
midfield has been all too barren.
Lingard’s answer
appears to be Mino Raiola, the super-agent he has hired. Yet Raiola’s clients
tend to be upwardly-mobile not downwardly so, which looks Lingard’s likeliest
trajectory.
There were suggestions
he would be offered as a makeweight in a deal to take James Maddison to Leicester.
Another of the
division’s ambitious middle class could be interested, but Lingard’s wages, of
at least £100,000 a week, would be a deterrent.
Meanwhile, Manchester
United eye Bruno Fernandes as a possible upgrade. The Portuguese has 28 goals
for club and country in a time when Lingard has one.
If Lingard was never as
prolific it used to be the case he illustrated his worth by the quality of the
opponents when he scored, not the number of goals.
But perhaps Lingard’s
decline is such that a dreadful year will leave him without a role as well as
without goals.
Football fans can get Manchester United Tickets through our
trusted online ticketing marketplace. Ticket4football.com is the most reliable
source to book Manchester United Football Tickets.
No comments:
Post a Comment