Declan Rice has told Football Focus that he told the West Ham players and coaches ‘you will see’ just how good Jesse Lingard is before he joined the club from Manchester United in January.
West Ham’s defensive rock also shared that ‘the lads’ were ‘blown away’ by Lingard in his first training session with the club.
Six months ago, Lingard was watching games from home as he struggled to even get into Manchester United’s matchday squad.
Fast forward to today and many are now questioning whether he should start for England at this summer’s delayed Euros.
Rice would have seen first hand how Lingard has picked himself up from the floor and turned his fortunes around, as he shared why the light-footed playmaker is so good.
“I am delighted for him,” said Rice. “Before he came to West Ham, a couple of the assistant coaches and a couple of the players were like ‘what’s he like? Good player?’.
“I just said ‘wait till he comes and then you will see (how good he is)’. I think in the first session the lads were just blown away by how good he was.
“Technically so good. He picks up so many good spaces for a midfielder to pass into and without him at West Ham then I don’t know where we would be.”
Lingard got his invertible goal against Arsenal last week, which just summed up that he is now back to his best.
Unless his form well and truly falls off a cliff before the season draws to a close, it would be a surprise to see him omitted from Gareth Southgate’s plans this summer.
His form is too good to not take him now!
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