Tag: England

Manchester Evening News have reported that Jesse Lingard, 29, has chosen to see out the remainder of his contract at Manchester United this season, and become a free agent afterwards.

The reports also claim that Manchester United are also not expecting any offers for the midfielder in the January window but would prefer to receive a transfer fee for Lingard instead of letting him leave for free.

However, if a transfer fee can be provided in the January window, Manchester United will peruse the offer.

Jesse Lingard came into this season with a lot of promise and hopes of making it finally with Manchester United. His six-month loan spell with West Ham United last season helped his confidence a lot and United fans were hoping he would get a bigger role this season.

It was not to be, as Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer ignored him for most of the season, only handing him a few minutes where he showed what he could actually being to the side.

It doesn’t look like any changes to his fortunes will be made under Rangnick either, and the midfielder has since been rumoured to be open to a January loan move.

The latest reports which claim that Lingard’s decision to finish the season with Manchester United is reported to be influenced by Ralf Rangnick’s comments some days ago.

The German manager stated that players who want to stay will stay, and those who want to leave will leave and that he sees no sense in convincing any player to do what they don’t want.

Conor Gallagher urged to learn from Lingard

Elsewhere, Chelsea midfielder on loan at Crystal Palace, Conor Gallagher, has been told to learn from Jesse Lingard’s ordeal at Manchester United.

The young midfielder has not had a chance to feature for Chelsea just yet but has shown the Blues’ fans what could be if given an opportunity.

His six goals for Crystal Palace currently puts him at the top of the Eagles’ goalscoring charts but his overall performance only serves to make his goals all the more impressive.

Rumours have claimed that Chelsea are looking at a possibility of recalling him from his loan to help strengthen their injury-ridden midfield. However, Sam Allardyce has advised him not to do it, using Jesse Lingard as an example.

“I’d want to come back and give it a go (at Chelsea) and I think on his form at the moment and you have to bear in mind now he made his England debut, he’s an England international,” Allardyce said.

“He would want to go back and try and get in the team but I think if you do that, you’ve got to play enough first team games because if you don’t you can easily fall backwards like Jesse Lingard.

“Staying at Man United I think has been a bad choice for him because he’s not been selected.

“While at West Ham he was one of the best goalscoring midfield players in the Premier League in his time there; now he’s sitting on the bench at Man United.

“So you have to be very careful on your choices at the right time and if you’re playing as much football as Conor’s playing now, and enjoying it more than ever with Palace then you want to continue that.

“If that’s not at Chelsea it can certainly be somewhere else in the Premier League I’m sure.”

Gabriel Agbonlahor has given his opinion on Ralf Rangnick’s tenure at Manchester United as the 63-year-old closes in on one month at Old Trafford.

Agbonlahor, who works as a pundit with talkSPORT was commenting on Manchester United’s 1-0 victory over Norwich City at Carrow Road.

The match was Rangnick’s second Premier League game in charge of United. The Red Devils showed marked signs of improvement in defensive areas like in his other game but still struggled to threaten in the final third.

They needed a 75th minute Cristiano Ronaldo penalty to see off Norwich City and condemn the Canaries to another week in the relegation battle. Agbonlahor, however, saw no changes in United’s game.

He told talkSPORT: “I understand Norwich are fighting for their life and they’re going to put pressure on you, but I didn’t see any difference from the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reign.

“The performance, all I saw [on Saturday] was Jadon Sancho and Bruno Fernandes playing more narrow. There was no presence in the pressing, I think the only person I saw press in the first half was Cristiano Ronaldo when he gave the ball away, he went to win it back.

“Everyone was excited for this new manager but for me, now, the jury is still out. If it wasn’t for David De Gea I think Norwich win the game. Even if Norwich were at 100 percent, the quality Manchester United have got on the field they should be beating Norwich three or four-nil.

“Maybe they [the players] didn’t do what Ralf Rangnick wanted today because we hear about this high press, intensity but today didn’t see that and maybe he’s disappointed in the way his team pressed because there was only one team pressing and that was Norwich.”

Rangnick unhappy with United attackers

Rangnick seems to share Agbonlahor’s opinion on Manchester United’s pressing as he did not hold back in his appraisal of his players’ performances to the media after the game.

United’s attackers got much more flak from their interim manager than his midfielders and defence. “Offensively, we had some nice moves but didn’t always find the best possible solution in the first half,” the former Lokomotiv Moscow advisor said.

“And in the second half, especially after we scored our goal, it’s a question of intensity, we conceded too many corner kicks from either side.

“It was never a game where we had the feeling nothing could happen and this is something we have to get better at.”

Regardless of the German’s feelings after the match, he has now entered his name into Manchester United’s history books after the 1-0 win made him the second coach in 118 years to keep two Premier League clean sheets in their first two matches.

He’s also only the second coach in United history to achieve this feat.

United were to take on Brentford but a COVID outbreak at Carrington led to the match being postponed. Rangnick will now have a few more days to drill his ideas into his squad to get them operating in the way he desires.

An outbreak of the Coronavirus on Manchester United’s grounds has forced the club to shake up their season with am appeal to the Premier League to excuse them from upcoming games.

The appeal stated that a “small number” of players and staff of the club tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday ahead of Tuesday’s game with Brentford which was eventually postponed.

The United squad and their travelling backroom staff all went to the Norwich City game clear of any medical related issues but after their return on Sunday to prepare for Brentford, an undisclosed number of staff and players tested positive for the dreaded virus.

This will be the second COVID-19 outbreak at Carrington this season following the pre-season break out before the friendly match with Preston North End which had to be cancelled.

Norwich, who played hosts to Manchester United before the breakout might be affected by this development in the coming weeks.

However, they had no issues hosting Aston Villa on Tuesday, a game which they lost by two goals to none.

Tottenham Hotspur also had their game against Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday postponed for the same reason as a record 42 cases were discovered across all the Premier League clubs.

This development means that all the clubs will now be under scrutiny, especially with the new, rampant and more dangerous Omicron variant around in England.

Victor Lindelof undergoing tests after Norwich game

Manchester United defender Victor Lindelof had to be taken off in the Norwich game due to breathing difficulties which the club’s medical staff have been quick to dismiss as not related to the outbreak at the club.

He is also said to have recovered well, but investigations are still ongoing on what exactly the issue was.

“Victor is currently undergoing a series of precautionary investigations,” the club said in a statement.

“However, he has recovered well from the episode he experienced in the match against Norwich.

“All indications are that this is not linked to any COVID outbreak within the club.”

Lindelof fitted with a heart monitor

Victor Lindelof’s wife Maja has blogged about her husband’s case, revealing that the Manchester United doctors have fitted him with a heart monitor to try to understand the cause of the breathing problems he suffered.

“It was a scary match to watch and Victor was very concerned afterwards,” she wrote. “Yesterday he did a lot of tests and has a heart monitor on for two days to make sure everything is OK.

“Everything seems to be OK as luck would have it and we are waiting for answers to the last tests that will end tomorrow.”

United goalkeeper David De Gea is concerned, however, citing the cases of Christian Eriksen and Sergio Aguero as reasons for his concern.

Both players are currently sidelined with heart issues. Eriksen will be terminating his contract with Inter Milan as Italian laws do not allow anybody with a history of heart issues participate in sports.

Meanwhile, the former Manchester City striker Aguero is expected to announce his retirement from playing on Wednesday.

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta left out club captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from their win against Southampton on Saturday and confirmed just before the game kicked off that the decision was due to a disciplinary issue.

The Athletic reported that Aubameyang took a personal trip during the week with the permission of the squad but returned later than agreed.

A social media snap from the Gabonese striker showing him at a tattoo parlour in Barcelona later went viral. And when Arteta released his squad list, the rumour mills began operating at full capacity.

The striker did not train with the team on Friday before the game and Arteta let the journalists know that Aubameyang had to be dropped to discipline him.

“Unfortunately due to a disciplinary breach,” Arteta said in his presser on Friday, without explicitly spilling the beans on the matters.

“I think we have been very consistent that we have certain non-negotiables in the team that we have set ourselves as a club, and he’s not involved today.”

The Spaniard also noted that having the club captain not be available for important games like the one against Southampton was not the club’s intention.

“It’s not an easy situation and not a situation we want to have our club captain in,” Arteta added.

However, journalists kept pressing the former Everton midfielder on his decision to drop Aubameyang, who is the club’s second-highest goalscorer in the Premier League this season.

He refused to comment on the issue even when the report of Aubameyang returning from his trip late was brought up.

“Let’s talk about the game,” Arteta snaps at journalists

Arteta showed signs of irritation as journalists continued to press for more information on the Aubameyang situation.

“You’re not going to get anything else from me. Unfortunately it happened,” the 39-year-old manager said.

“I explained what happened and the reason he wasn’t involved and that’s where I’m going to stay on it.

“It was a disciplinary breach, and that’s why he was out of the squad.”

More questions arose about the possibility of Aubameyang losing the armband, but Arteta insisted that they talk about the game instead of Aubameyang.

“Let’s talk about the game. I tried to explain why it was, and I did it frankly. I’m not going to say anything else, I’m going to focus on the performance and the quality that was on the pitch,” he said.

It is not the first time Arsenal have had to enforce disciplinary measures on Aubameyang.

The 32-year-old was late to training the day before the North London derby and had to start the game on the bench. In February, he was also reprimanded by the club following a Covid-19 regulations breach.

Arteta keeping mum over Aubameyang transfer

Aubameyang also started the Everton game on the bench and was brought in for the last five minutes of the game, with Arteta preferring to bring in Eddie Nketiah earlier instead.

Rumours of the former Borussia Dortmund man’s exit from the Emirates have been in circulation for a while, and the Gunners boss was also asked ahead of the Southampton game if dropping Aubameyang was a sign of things to come.

“Really, we have never discussed something like this, and when players are under difficulty – or the team is under difficulty – what we have to be is supportive,” the Spanish manager said.

Arteta also added: “I have a very good relationship with my players. Everyone has to understand that I always do the best for this club and for this team.

“And often if that can benefit any individuals, I will always do it. The decisions are not personal, the decisions are just to get performance, and the best out of the team. That’s it.”