“Jesse Lingard has now gone 29 Premier League games without a goal or assist,” I tweeted on 1 January. No context, but factually correct. No doubt I was keen to hoover up some easy numbers to break in the New Year. There’s nothing quite like reading your old tweets to throw yourself into a shame spiral that ends only in self-reproach. Until the next time you get bored and stumble across another slightly interesting, mostly boring statistic.
By 26 July, Lingard’s drought had only increased by four games; more grey cloud than silver lining. The return to fitness of Paul Pogba and arrival of Bruno Fernandes had pushed Lingard so far down Manchester United’s midfield queue that he stood halfway down Matt Busby Way. His goal against Leicester City may well be his last for a club that have either run out of faith or run out of use.
That might well have been that. “Player X is not good enough for Club Y” is hardly an unusual take. This is the Premier League, not a school sports day. Not everyone is guaranteed a prize and loyalty is a two-way street. The multi-billion pound transfer market is founded upon two simple principles: Players often believe they are better than their clubs; clubs often believe they need better players.
But three days after the end of his fifth – and comfortably most disappointing – Premier League season, Lingard had something to say. He used his Instagram account and an interview to discuss the personal problems he has faced over the course of this season. His mother had suffered extended periods of depression that had finally come to a head and forced her to travel to London to seek help. His younger brother and sister had moved in with Lingard to ease the burden on the family, and he had become their primary carer. The changes had, not unreasonably, affected Lingard’s on-field form.
The most interesting thing about Lingard’s words this week is that he was repeating himself. Last December, he spoke at length to the Daily Mail about the issues of his mother’s depression and strain on him and his family while she finally sought professional help. One quote stands out: “I have been down and glum; just worrying. I felt like everybody just passed all the stuff to me and it weighed on my shoulders. It has been tough to see my loved ones struggling and then I have to come to work and try to do my job.” Two weeks after that interview, I tweeted the statistic about his ineffectiveness in the final third. I hadn’t read that quote. If I had, I might have thought twice about such glib condemnation.
Criticism is an inevitable part of a writer’s job; the same applies to commentators, pundits and, increasingly, supporters too. That criticism is partly born out of frustration at unfulfilled potential, partly from the persona a player chooses to create for marketing purposes and partly – subconsciously – because censure sells better than praise.
But we – I – too rarely bother to wonder why. For all the noise of football discourse, so little of it scratches below the surface. If a player is out of form, is that more likely to be proof that they are a) not very good, b) don’t care, c) are ungrateful or because there is something in their personal lives that make the job harder? We have all had periods in our lives when the demarcations between the personal and professional become blurred, and family depression would rank highly as an aggravating factor. We’re humans, not robots. And forget the money; nobody reasonably believes that depression and heartache can be magically solved by one wave of an expensive wand.
That is not to say that criticism is never appropriate. Managers and players suffer periods of underwhelming form when they fail to match up to transfer fees, salaries and hype. Some behave inappropriately in public and cave into the same everyday sins as you or I. Part of the reason for footballers’ high earning potential is that they commit to avoid temptations. But we owe it to them to examine other possibilities first.
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There is an obvious solution: Open up about everything in the moment in a bid to earn public empathy and patience. But then that leaves footballers in an impossible situation: Lose all privacy in a life played out in the spotlight’s glare and suffer the media inquisition that goes with it, or maintain your – and your family’s – privacy and await the slings and arrows. Neither is particularly appetising.
Lingard is not a bad footballer nor a bad person. Three different Manchester United managers have picked him regularly. Gareth Southgate started in him in five World Cup matches in 2018, the only exceptions being a dead rubber group match and third-fourth place playoff match in which he made wholesale changes.
Lingard is merely a byproduct of modern football discourse in which the middle ground has been evaporated by tribalism, hyperbole, extremism and impatience. If he’s probably not talented enough for a team of Manchester United’s new ambition, that should not provoke any shame or apology.
But as Lingard continues to juggle personal strife with professional decline, you find yourself rooting for him to find a happy home on and off the field. Perhaps that’s partly for the absolution of personal guilt; I’m happy to say I’m sorry. But it’s also because he’s just a young man trying to do his best by his family and realise the dreams of the player that so many demanded he become.
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