West Ham fans have taken to Twitter to react after reading what Garth Crooks had to say about Jesse Lingard in his Team of the Week segment.
Yesterday, the BBC pundit included the in-form West Ham No.11 in his Team of the Week, after his double in the 3-2 win over Leicester.
However, Crooks did find time to aim a slight dig at Lingard.
He wrote: ‘Yet another top-class performance from Jesse Lingard. Since his arrival from Manchester United the England international has taken the Hammers into the top four and made them look like serious contenders for a Champions League spot.
‘Goals matched by bundles of energy, commitment and desire takes the player back to when he was producing excellent performances for Manchester United. He’s doing fantastically for West Ham, but he really needs to leave out the dance celebrations if he wants us to take him seriously.’
Now, that final point is obviously nonsense, and we hope it was written tongue-in-cheek by Crooks.
At the end of the day, nobody cares how a player celebrates his goals – they only care that he’s actually scoring the goals in the first place.
If Lingard ends the season with double figures for Premier League goals, and books himself a spot in Gareth Southgate’s EURO 2021 squad, we’re confident that many people will be taking him seriously.
That’s regardless of whether he keeps dancing.
For Crooks to make this a talking point is poor, in our view.
The focus should be on Lingard being in the form of his life, rather than how he celebrates after scoring.
The 28-year-old now has eight goals and three assists in nine Premier League games for the Hammers, which is absolutely incredible.
Let’s see how the West Ham fans on Twitter reacted to his comments…
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