The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

Hello, good morning football fans, it’s Ayyaz Malik aka The Sports Buff. The name Jesse Lingard divides opinion in the footballing world.

In some quarters he is still that youngster (even at 29) with countless potential and to others he’s a player who wasted his career by doing silly dances on social media and his move to Nottingham Forest only confirms that a once promising has been wasted.

The 29-year old Lingard who was of course at Manchester United for 20 years, will no doubt have irked some West Ham fans who thought he was joining them, especially after posting a cryptic story which seemed to suggest as much.

Warrington born Jesse Lingard who will be joining the East Midlander’s at The City Ground for a year isn’t the first proverbial big fish in a small pond. With the greatest respect, Forest do have some prestige and history (they’ve more Champions League titles than Manchester City, yes I went there ouch!).

But this Notts Forest team with the greatest respect is one that’s come out of the Championship and most of their players are not of the same profile as ‘J-Lingz’. Football clubs signings marquee players though isn’t new, let me remind you.

Juninho at Middlesbrough. The little Brazilian famously donned the red of Borough and helped stayed in the Premier League too. Bit of a theme developing, but again The Teesiders were able to sign Italian super star at the time Fabrizio Ravenelli who scored a bucket loads of goals for Middlesbrough.

No disrespect Brentford fans, maybe Christian Eriksen also was at a smaller club, compared to his talent. The Dane, has played for clubs such as Tottenham, Ajax, Inter Milan and now will be Manchester United.

I point these two examples out because. just maybe this move to Nottingham Forest isn’t that off the mark as what people think. Lingard will get guaranteed game time.

There is the argument that if Jesse goes to a Premier League new boy and not a team challenging for Europe like West Ham, then it would harm his England chances- to be more precise his England world cup chances.

Fikoyo Timori moved to Italian giants AC Milan won SerieA with them been outstanding with the Rossaneri side, but still is on the fringes for the national side. So, Lingard should be ok in theory, moving abroad to a big club isn’t always the best way to improve your England chances as the Chelsea academy graduate has proved.

Jesse Lingard will be accused of going to Nottingham Forest for the money, but he did turn down a move to Saudi Arabia and if he was a money grabber, well I wouldn’t think he would turn down a move to the Middle East.

Maybe the move to Nottingham Forest would mean that he’s not too far from his family, even football players have family lives. If Nottingham Forest offer him £200,000 and West Ham aren’t, do you honestly think he will turn down £200,000?

If I was offered a better paid job in a broadcasting/presenting role, as much as I like guys I work with, I would be out of there first thing in the morning.

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