Manchester United winger Jesse Lingard is moving closer to a West Ham United loan move, per Sky Sports. Nothing is finalized as of yet, but the 28-year-old will be given a chance to find first team football elsewhere, if a deal is reached. The gaffer has sanctioned it.
“He is still part of the club, part of the squad and no deal has been struck for any players yet going out,” United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said to the media earlier today.
“There have been many clubs interested in our players so let’s see what happens. It’s important to take our wishes and our plans into consideration.”
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In addition to the Hammers, West Brom, Sheffield and Newcastle are all said to be interested as well. There appears to be a sticking point right now about the loan fee, according to various reports. Also, the deal faces another potential stumbling block with West Ham, as they would exceed the numbers of loanees allowed.
Therefore, according to Sky, they’re exploring the idea of “making Said Benrahma’s loan from Brentford permanent for £20m to comply with Premier League rules on domestic loans.”
Lingard has only featured thrice this season, twice in the League Cup and once in the FA Cup.
He is infamously synonymous with a domestic goal scoring drought that lasted over a full calendar year, and he’s yet to feature in a Premier League game since July. And while he certainly draws a lot of derision on social media, one must cut him some slack, given all that’s going on in his personal life.
Outside the scope of this article, but I highly suggest you look up all the stuff he’s had to deal with off-the-pitch recently.
On the plus side, he’s also the only the very last goal scorer of the Louis van Gaal era, and the very first of the Jose Mourinho regime, and no one else can say that.
He was a part of the plans when David Moyes was in charge at United, so perhaps a reunion with his former manager would serve everybody well.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.