Lingard misses out on guaranteed starting role

Ahead of Manchester United’s friendly against Everton on Saturday, the club have confirmed that Jesse Lingard has tested positive for Covid. The timing is awful for Lingard, who has had a great pre-season on the back of an impressive loan spell for West Ham, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer confirming he would have been in the starting line-up for the final friendly.

You can take all the precautions and you might meet someone and something happens. Jesse’s done really well in pre-season but he’ll come back sharp. I don’t think it’s too bad.

You want to see good performances going into next week in good mood with good confidence, intensity today is important. We will make a few changes because we need to have people ready for next weekend. As we saw with Jesse he would have been a starter today definitely and he’s out so we need as many as possible.

Lingard may well have been in the manager’s thoughts for a starting place in the opening game of the season against Leeds at the weekend, so it’s a crushing blow for him. His future at United is still unclear, despite Solskjaer claiming the forward is in his plans, with rumours of him potentially signing permanently for West Ham after doing so well for them last season.