Jesse Lingard takes swipe at Manchester United: “It was false promises”

Jesse Lingard has scored some of Manchester United’s most important goals in the last decade, yet his exit from the club after almost 20 years of service was both uneventful and pretty unemotional.

While playing for the Manchester United first team, Manchester United won three trophies and a Community Shield – and Jesse Lingard scored in three of these fixtures.

A dazzling run in the Community Shield, a curling finish in the EFL Cup final, and a rocket volley in the FA Cup final are three memories that every United fan treasures, alongside other iconic moments such as his brilliant brace against Arsenal – Lingard was no doubt an iconic figure in the squad during his peak years at the club.

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However, after going on loan to West Ham after six-months of little action for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the midfielder tore the Premier League to pieces, scoring nine goals and providing five assists in just 16 appearances for The Irons.

When he arrived back from his loan, it was well documented that Solskjaer then offered Lingard a lot of playing time in order to get the player to stay – promises that the club never held up to, according to Lingard himself.

“I don’t know why I wasn’t playing,” Lingard told the Telegraph. “I don’t know what the problem was, whether it was politics or whatever – I still haven’t got an answer to this day. I didn’t even ask.

“I’d rather that someone out of respect for me being there that long told me ‘this is why you’re not playing’, but I never got that.”

Lingard played just 548 minutes across 22 appearances in the 2021/22 season, scoring two goals and assisting one more – which is certainly not the terms he would have agreed to upon deciding to stay at the club in the summer of 2021.

He ended up leaving the club on a free transfer at the end of June this year, signing for Nottingham Forest later in the window.

“It was false promises,” concluded Lingard. “I was training hard and I was sharp, I was ready to play them games. When you’re working hard in training and don’t play at the end of it, it’s very frustrating.”

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One detail Lingard revealed is that he was struggling with injury during that pre-season, which will have gone some way as to why he didn’t “hit the ground running” once he re-joined the club.

“I didn’t have a proper pre-season and had a problem with my Achilles (heel) as I was training on my own (before the move). I was trying to get through games and not feeling 100 per cent, but I still wanted to fight for my team.”

Finally, Lingard explained that although he thinks Tuesday evening’s fixture will be enjoyable, he only has one objective in mind: to beat Manchester United.

“It will be an enjoyable one, but we want to win the game. You can’t get caught up too much emotionally, It’s a chance to say goodbye because I never really got that.”