According to The Times, Jesse Lingard is on the verge of joining Nottingham Forest, despite interest from Everton and Tottenham.
What’s the story?
Well, West Ham have also been trying to sign the England international this summer, although he now looks set to join Steve Cooper at the City Ground in what is a surprising move.
It comes after Everton made contact with Lingard, as Antonio Conte also hoped to bring the 29-year-old free agent to Spurs.
Remarkably, Nottingham Forest are offering the Warrington-born attacker a contract worth £200,000-a-week, which is an astonishing amount for a newly promoted club to spend on one player.
Nevertheless, it is a huge show of ambition from the Championship play-off final winners as they aim to survive their first season in the Premier League.
The Times state that West Ham offered Lingard £150,000-a-week to make a return to east London, where he impressively scored nine goals in just 16 Premier League outings back in the 2020/21 campaign.
It would’ve made the Manchester United Academy graduate the highest earner at the London Stadium ahead of the £120,000-a-week Kurt Zouma, and the Hammers did have concerns about how it would affect their wage structure.
However, David Moyes doesn’t need to worry about that anymore, it seems.
Everton & Tottenham needn’t worry either
Clearly, the Toffees and Spurs were keen to sign Lingard, but for £200,000-a-week, they needn’t worry about missing out on him.
Had Frank Lampard or Conte agreed to pay what Nottingham Forest are spending, it would’ve surely caused major discontent among the squad, with many potentially knocking on the manager’s door asking for pay rises.
Nottingham Forest can afford – not just in financial terms – to do that, as the bulk of their squad will presumably realise that Lingard is substantially better than most of them, with all due respect.
However, we doubt many at Everton or Tottenham would’ve been pleased to see a player who made just two Premier League starts last season handed a better salary than them.
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