Speaking on The West Ham Way podcast, Hammers insider ExWHUemployee dropped a fresh claim on the club’s pursuit of Jesse Lingard.
The Manchester United midfielder is currently with the England squad having been called up by Gareth Southgate, despite only playing four minutes in the Premier League so far this season, which may have increased West Ham’s chances of signing Lingard.
Will Lingard rejoin West Ham this summer?
Yes
No
West Ham appear to be closing in on the signing of a different attacking midfielder in Nikola Vlasic from CSKA Moscow for £25 million, however, that does not appear to have scuppered West Ham’s attempts to sign Lingard, as David Moyes looks to bolster his squad ahead of what will be a hectic season with Europa League games.
Ex spoke about where the Hammers stand in their pursuit of Lingard.
“I’ve got very mixed messages about Lingard throughout the last few days – well, actually throughout the whole window. So it started off that Lingard was very happy at West Ham, and then he spoke to [Ole Gunnar] Solskjaer.
“Mark Noble and various other players tried to convince Lingard to sign for West Ham when he was in the chairman’s suite on the last day of the season against Southampton. I think Noble, maybe [Declan] Rice – I’m guessing at players – [Aaron] Cresswell possibly, a few of them took him into the director’s room apparently and said, literally, ‘you’ve got to sign this guy!’.
“We saw a bit of banter about it and it seemed like he would [sign], and then, obviously [he] spoke to Solskjaer, and Solskjaer sort of reassured him that he did have plans for him.
“Man United, it’s a bigger club than West Ham so he wants to have a go at making his career reborn again at Manchester United and Solskjaer assured him he would get a chance to.”
TIF Thoughts on Lingard’s situation…
It seems pretty clear that, despite Man United claiming that they are happy for Lingard to remain at the club beyond Tuesday’s deadline, his minutes on the pitch in the league will be severely hindered, with the arrival of Jadon Sancho and the imminent signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Therefore, it would make sense for Man United to cash in on Lingard, who has just one year left on his current deal, and for the midfielder himself – who will surely want to be playing regularly to keep hold of his England place ahead of next year’s World Cup in Qatar – to ensure he has a realistic pathway towards first-team football, much like what he had enjoyed at West Ham last term.