The 25-year-old has starred for Jose Mourinho's Red Devils side this season, and has already banged in ten goals in all competitions
SIR ALEX FERGUSON is often described as visionary. After all, he was the pioneer behind unparalleled Manchester United success during his 26-year spell as manager at Old Trafford.
He could also spot a player, too. From trusting the Class of ‘92 to buying a scrawny Portuguese teenager in 2003 and turning him into one of the world’s best players.
And given Wilfried Zaha’s form this season for Crystal Palace, Sir Alex is once again being proven right after making him his final signing for the Red Devils. But perhaps more surprisingly he’s also being proven right about Jesse Lingard.
“Jesse Lingard is going to be some player,” he said back in 2012, speaking about the then 19-year-old. “[He] is built like Jean Tigana was for France, but he never got into the limelight there until he was about 24. I think that will be the same with Lingard.”
Now 25 years old, Lingard is truly in the limelight and has become one of Manchester United’s most important players in recent weeks. He has scored decisive goals in big games and our friends at Football Whispers look at his rise from squad player to key man.
The England international’s sensational strike against Everton for United on New Year’s Day underlined the progression he is making this season.
The 2017/18 campaign is already the best goalscoring season of his career, with Lingard managing ten in all competitions, seven of which have been in the Premier League.
Add those to his four assists and Lingard has been directly involved in a league goal every 84 minutes.
That is a better return than Barcelona transfer target Philippe Coutinho (86 minutes) and Tottenham’s superstar Harry Kane (88 minutes).
Impressively, only Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (73 minutes) and Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero (78 minutes) are ahead of Lingard. It’s esteemed company to be in.
But before this season, Lingard had only averaged a Premier League goal or assist every 378 minutes and other than Ferguson, not too many seemed to be enamoured with or had particularly high hopes for the attacker.
Many neutrals had written him off as immature after the Manchester United bus was attacked on the way to a game with West Ham in 2016.
Lingard filmed himself laughing and it looked more like he was a kid on a school trip rather than a player at one of the world’s biggest clubs.
United have since changed managers and like many at Old Trafford since Jose Mourinho’s arrival, the 25-year-old has been tested with periods out of the first team.
Before November, Lingard had only made one start in the league, but he has made the most of Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s poor form to establish himself in the starting XI.
Since the start of December only Kane has scored more Premier League goals than Lingard’s seven. And his improvement on the pitch could be due to him focusing himself off it.
"It is always good vibes when you are younger," he told Sky Sports at the start of the season. "When you get older you realise it is all about winning games and winning trophies."
That new attitude has undoubtedly served him well this season. Several very good players in the past have failed with Mourinho’s sink or swim attitude – Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku fell foul of it while at Chelsea.
But Lingard seems to have embraced it completely. “Each day you are learning and you can see from the manager about game-management and what he wants you to do on the pitch,” he said in the summer. Doing things in the right areas, that's very key.”
And there’s no doubt Manchester United’s No.14 is now doing things in the right areas. He also provides the intensity and energy his manager wants – against Everton, he made 83 high-intensity sprints, 29 more than any of his Manchester United team-mates.
And while Pep Guardiola is receiving adulation, rightly so, for his transformation of Sterling, Mourinho deserves some for how he’s evolved Lingard from a squad player to a star man.
