Most liked posts in thread: England - Jesse Lingard

Sour Grapes? Seriously? I have no problem with Lingard doing well, if you actually paid attention to this thread I was one of the few singing his praises while most of you were being very dismissive of him.

As for saying United messed him about and marginalised him that shows a complete lack of understanding. He was having big issues in his personal life, he had just had a kid, then his mother got ill-meaning he had to then look after his young brother and sister and his form dropped off as real-life issues have a habit to cause. Before that he had been one of the first names on the team sheet for LVG, Jose and Ole and was an integral part of the team. He just got unlucky that this personal stuff and the drop in form due to it also coincided with United signing Bruno who has been undroppable.

And he was largely playing the same role for United as he is West Ham. The only difference's the type of tactics WH come up against and the other options. For United we come up against teams playing low blocks more often than not. When players make runs from Lingard's position against a low block its more about causing disruption, either by being the player who makes the clever unselfish run that creates a gap to be exploited or if you get the ball it's not with lots of room to run into a goal-scoring opportunity but rather looking to be involved in the build-up, as I said elsewhere in the thread while his assist record wasn't great he was often the assisted to the assisted. It's the same with England, alot of teams will use a low block there as well to try and nullify Englands attacking threat

At West Ham because teams don't often deploy a low block, now when he makes runs he has more space to exploit himself and when there are fewer attacking options for West Ham it simplifies the other player's choices, it's more the goto option to look for Lingard first as you don't have the likes of Rashford as other options so he naturally see's more balls played to him so he has more chances

 

Can't say it fills me with much hope for England as it just seems like we are going to get stuck in the situation England all too often get stuck in and that's overloading the squad with players who are the same as a good number of others which may be great if you are just making a change due to injury but leaves the team unable to change style to adapt to situations. I always feel personally its good to have a 2nd choice in a position who is similar to first choice but a 3rd choice who brings something different