Manchester United have put Jesse Lingard up for sale, according to The Guardian.
The playmaker has struggled for form for over two years and has not been able to hold down a regular place in the starting line-up since 2018.
The arrival of Bruno Fernandes and emergence of Mason Greenwood have seen Lingard slide down the pecking order and the expected arrival of Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho and Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish means that first team chances for the 27-year-old will become even more limited.
The academy graduate has made a little progress of late, scoring his first Premier League goal since December 2018 when Leicester keeper Kasper Schmeichel gifted him the ball in injury time last Sunday and netting his second Europa League goal of the season on Wednesday against Lask.
Despite his goal, however, Lingard was hauled off after 63 minutes of that game and looked close to tears in the stand as the substitution suggested it was too little, too late to impress manager Ole Gunnar Solksjaer.
‘Although Solskjær is an admirer of Lingard, having coached him as a youth player at United, the 27-year-old is deemed surplus to requirements,’ The Guardian claims.
‘Lingard’s contract ends in summer 2021 and although the club have an option to extend this for a year Solskjær is open to a sale should the right bid be lodged.’
United legend Paul Scholes also believes Lingard is about to be sold, telling BT Sport:
‘He hasn’t been good enough lately. Is he a starting player if you’re going to go on and win the league and bigger trophies? I’m not sure he is.
‘When Ole took him off after an hour [against Lask] I thought that this was a sign that he is probably thinking of moving him on.
‘I might be totally wrong with that but that was the feeling I’ve got. When you have fringe players and you’ve got to get them games, [that] was the perfect opportunity for 90 minutes.
‘He scored a goal as well, his confidence might have grown. I don’t think he was particularly great but to bring him off after an hour, I think that was a little sign and possibly with Fred as well, he might be thinking the same situation and looking to offload the pair of them.’
It could be that too much is being read into the substitution, which may simply have been made for another reason. Solskjaer has always given the impression that he believes in and likes Lingard a great deal.
However, it is also true that if new signings in Lingard’s preferred positions are made, he will almost certainly need to move on if he wants to play first team football while in the peak years of his career.
