West Ham boss David Moyes spoke to reporters today and responded when asked whether he will bring Jesse Lingard back to the club from Manchester United in the summer.
The Hammers were heavily linked with bringing the 29-year-old attacking midfielder back to the London Stadium from Manchester United in the January transfer window.
The Athletic’s David Ornstein claimed on deadline day that West Ham made a last-gasp move to sign Jesse.
In other news…Report: West Ham’s summer priority is to sign ‘exceptional’ £25.3m ace from London rivals
Man United eventually dug their heels in, however, and the 32-capped England international remained at Old Trafford.
Lingard will be out of contract with Manchester United in the summer though and he will undoubtedly leave his boyhood club then.
West Ham boss Moyes repsonds to Lingard question
Jesse made the Hammers so much more of an efficient unit as an attacking team during his four-month loan spell at the London Stadium last year.
He bagged nine goals and four assists in 16 Premier League games for West Ham. And we have definitely missed him this season.
Moyes spoke to reporters today and he was asked whether he will bring Lingard back to the London Stadium in the summer, as quoted by Football.London:
“I don’t know, we will see.”
The fact that Moyes said ‘we will see’ surely means that he will at least try.
Usually when asked about players from other clubs, the West Ham boss just delivers a stock response – ‘I don’t talk about players from other teams’.
This time it had a different feeling about it.
Lingard currently earns £80k-a-week at Old Trafford according to the Manchester Evening News. He will be available on a free transfer in the summer, so even if we had to pay him £120k-a-week on a three-year contract or so, it wouldn’t be a bad deal for us financially.
West Ham would have had to pay a £20 million fee for Jesse had we signed him last summer according to The Sun.
So the Hammers would be saving a huge amount by picking him up for nothing.
We hope that Moyes does bring Lingard back to the London Stadium. At the same time though, it will be incredibly frustrating if we end up chasing him for the third consecutive window, fail to sign him and miss out on other targets in the process.
West Ham need to move swiftly for the 29-year-old in the summer and if it doesn’t happen, just move on with the thinking that perhaps it’s just not meant to be.
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