Jesse Lingard now looks a nailed-on certainty to join the Hammers and hopefully Manchester United won’t play their usual long winded game in letting the lad leave.
Our northern correspondent Terry Robbins revealed a few days ago that Lingard’s would make no decision on joining the Hammers until David Moyes had signed a new deal.
The Moyes contract will now be followed by others to his new number two, Billy McKinlay and the rest of his backroom staff. Jesse is on his way!
West Ham made it clear to CandH that the priority signings were the 28 year old, a central defender and of course a striker. Jesse is likely to command the immediate attention of Moyes.
We understand the boss isn’t the quickest mover in the market and has reputation for changing direction on players but his mind is made up on Lingard and vice versa.
There is next to zero chance of him joining Spurs in a player swap deal with no manager in place over there and he’s made it clear how happy he was at the Hammers. anyway
The club will now be working on agreeing personal terms with his agents and a fee with United.
Of course they will drag it out. It will start off with them trying to involve Rice in some sort of swap deal as the Athletic and Manchester Evening News are always trying to push. Then after that they’ll ask for a daft amount of money like £35m-£40m. They’ll be hoping interest is generated from other clubs too.
We’ll probably get him in the week leading up to deadline day. But there’s no advantage for them to sell quickly for what we’d consider a fair price. They’ll leave it as long as possible in the hope of getting a better deal then sell last minute if they don’t rather than risk losing the player on a free or for much cheaper come January.
Also when has a transfer ever been straightforward for us?
They don’t want Rice and he holds the whip hand
Yeah, but holding on for the right deal works for us because:
A. He wants to come here as his first choice
B. He knows we want him
C. As soon as he’s in the last year of his Man U deal his value drops anyway
D. Signing him just before the start of the season doesn’t present any acclimatisation issues as he’s already part of the team.
Let them play their games; there’s only one likely outcome and dragging it out suits no one but us.
You make a diamond point, Geezer….
… and what if Lingard got injured in pre-season..?
The other thing to remember, CA$H IS KING….. across Europe now, clubs are financially struggling and Premiership is cash rich, meaning there will be some amazing value deals available to clubs like Man U and even West Ham…..
Lingard holds the power. He can tell United he only wants to play for west ham and will not consider another move. If United don’t be reasonable he can down tools and drive his value down further.
Lingard has been a good servant to United so I think it’s unlikely United would block his wishes should a sensible fee be offered
Hope that ‘the rest of his backroom staff’ includes Kevin, Stuart, Paul and Xavi. Hopefully, Alan might be involved in some way, too.
COYI
Only spanner in the works I could see is if olly gunner solskjar tells lingard he’s in his future plans at United and tries to convince him to stay. That could sway lingard who is after all a Man U product born and bred.
To.be fair Hugh cant see it being straight
forward as we all wish and want it to be..