Lingard Gets His Reward

Almost inevitably, and especially given the 'injury crisis' the England International team manager Gareth Southgate has had to cope with, Jesse Lingard's fine form for West Ham while on loan from Manchester United has been rewarded with a recall to the National squad, having not prominently featured since the 2018 World Cup finals.

This is what Gareth Southgate had to say regarding Jesse Lingard's recall: "We have injuries in attacking areas which have opened up an opportunity for Jesse. I have to say his performances for West Ham have been excellent. We know he can perform at that level. Ideally, you would be saying he needs to do it for longer but that has not been the option this time around. We have lost Jack Grealish, Jadon Sancho and one or two others like Harvey Barnes and James Maddison. There is a space there, we trust Jesse and think he can play a big part in these three games."

Excellent news for the player who had been left out in the cold by club and country, not so good for West Ham, who will see a key player who's availability will be crucial if the club are to achieve European qualification, going off on England duty for three games, he is hardly likely to return refreshed is he?

Lingard and Declan Rice will team up for England, fellow Hammers Tomáš Souček, Vladimír Coufal, Saïd Benrahma and Łukasz Fabiański are also on International duty. Other 'friendly' fixtures have been cancelled as a result of Covid-19 restrictions.

Of course the major worry is that Lingard might get injured while away with England, and let's face it, Hammers have had more than their fair share of players getting crocked on International duty.- Ed