Most liked posts in thread: England - Jesse Lingard

Why is his job more than that? Because you and a bunch of football fans say it is? His job is whatever his manager asks from him and multiple managers keep selecting him and asking him to provide just those very things. Every team needs a selfless workhorse of a player and with football being a team sport they make the team better without doing eye-catching things. United look way more dynamic with him in the team than say Mata or moving Pogba into that position because his movement opens up space

 

Trust me when Lingard doesn't start the team is more 1 dimensional. The likes of Martial and Rashford don't have spaces to attack and Pogba gets much less ability to roam or drive forward with the ball as space isn't there and he doesn't have a player who has the energy to trackback. That also limits the FB's ability to get forward as the chance of a turnover of play is much higher and they have less cover if they push too high.

And fans hating a player or loving a player is hardly an example of proof he is shit. Just look at Herrera, Lindeloff and Bailly. Herrera was loved for his workrate but the amount of fouls he gave away near the edge of the box was crazy, and that was because his positional sense in the English game was woeful and he gave away fouls because he was having to try and recover from his bad positioning. Same with Bailly fans love his eye-catching last-ditch tackles but they were again forced on him by being badly positioned so he was having to try and make that up. Lindelof also has positional issues which is why he loses out on every single header he goes for. English football is different to the continent, even Pep had to adapt his style to be more direct and physical and that means the positioning you take up has to be different, all 3 players were/do take up the continental positioning (which is also why all 3 always look more solid in European games) but that puts them half way between two valid positions you need to take up in the English game so they get bypassed. Against Palace most united, fans blamed Maguire for the first goal, not Lindelof even though he lost out on a header with a smaller, less physical player because his starting position was all wrong

Some players can do their job perfectly and even be the best player in the squad and fans will still hate them while others can be poor and still be loved