Why Leicester City should avoid signing Man United’s Jesse Lingard

According to Oddschecker (h/t Leicester Mercury), Leicester City have emerged as clear favourites to sign Manchester United midfielder Jesse Lingard. It is understood that 39% of all bets in the market are backing the 27-year-old to make the move to King Power Stadium. (h/t Leicester Mercury)

Jesse Lingard has not enjoyed the greatest of periods in his footballing career lately. The Manchester United midfielder has been in wretched form for well over 12 months but scored in the club’s 6-0 thrashing of Tranmere Rovers in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

The report (h/t Leicester Mercury) adds that the bookmakers’ second favourites are AC Milan at 16/1, followed by Inter Milan, Southampton and Everton – all at 33/1.

Leicester City, meanwhile, have enjoyed a strong season in the Premier League and currently lie third in the table, just three points behind second-placed Manchester City. Under Brendan Rodgers, players like Jamie Vardy, James Maddison, Ricardo Pereira, Ben Chilwell, Wilfred Ndidi, Youri Tielemans and many more have been excellent since the start of 2019/20 season.

Jamie Vardy is currently the league’s top-scorer with 17 goals in 22 appearances and has been ably supported by attacking players such as Ayoze Perez, Harvey Barnes, Dennis Praet, James Maddison, Marc Albrighton and Demarai Gray. Clearly, the Foxes have a plethora of attacking players and hence, they must avoid signing Jesse Lingard.

Lingard had a brief loan spell with Leicester during the 2012-13 season, making five substitute appearances in the Championship, including his senior debut. For United, on the other hand, he has made 197 appearances in all competitions, scoring 31 goals.

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The 27-year-old did score over the weekend in the 6-0 win against Tranmere Rovers in the FA Cup but Lingard has been completely out of sorts over the last two seasons at Old Trafford. In fact, he has only managed 7 goals in his last 66 appearances.

Verdict

As the Foxes are functioning well going forward, it doesn’t make sense to invest in a new attacker – at least not a player in the ilk of Lingard, who has failed to live up to the lofty expectations at Old Trafford over the last two years. Thus, the Foxes must stay away from the England international.