It's Jesse time
Ronaldo may have bagged the headlines everywhere else, but Lingard gets his name in lights here
FIVE ASIDES Champions League: United 2, Villareal 1
A prodigal son. A moment of inspiration. A cool head in the heat of the 95th minute. Yes, Jesse Lingard is back in business. Cristiano Ronaldo grabbed the glory, but it was Lingard who made it happen with that deft little assist, an early contender for toe poke of the season. In the space of just over two weeks, Lingard has been a last-minute winner (at West Ham), a last-minute sinner (at Young Boys) and now a last-minute assister. His stats for this season, as logged by the BBC, are stunning: 100pc shooting accuracy, 40pc conversion rate, 1.32 goals per 90, only 68 minutes per goal. On all those metrics, he is ahead of Ronaldo. And yet he’s only been given 136 minutes on the field, or a game and a half. What used to be known as Fergie time, and is sometimes called Ole time, is turning into Jesse time. What does he have to do to get a place in the first XI?
If Lingard and Ronaldo won the match, it was David de Gea who kept United in it. He has rolled back the years – to December 2017 and that ridiculous performance at the Emirates. His shot-stopping is back to its best, his distribution is better than ever, he’s radiating confidence and dispensing bollockings like a boss. He has responded superbly to two different kinds of adversity – losing his league place to Dean Henderson last winter, and failing to save a single penalty, or score his own, in the Europa final. The only drawback is that Henderson may now want to leave.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did what many supporters had been begging him to do and picked a more attacking midfield – but he chose the wrong moment to do it. With Aaron Wan-Bissaka banned, Luke Shaw unwell and Axel Tuanzebe out on loan, the full-backs pretty much had to be Diogo Dalot and Alex Telles. Both are natural wing-backs, built to bomb forward. With them both there, and Harry Maguire injured, United needed some insurance in midfield: Nemanja Matic’s tendency to lurk between the centre-backs, which can be exasperating, would have done nicely. He could have had Scott McTominay alongside him, allowing Paul Pogba to go on the left and give Villareal a problem they didn’t face in the Europa final. With Matic hovering over his left shoulder, McTominay would have been free to bail out Dalot, who was getting swamped by Arnaut Danjuma. The fall guy would have been Jadon Sancho, which wouldn’t have been a high price to pay as he has yet to find his form for United.
When Telles arrived a year ago, United were signing a goal-scoring left-back. In his last season and a bit for Porto, Telles racked up 15 goals in 52 appearances. That was partly because he took penalties and free kicks, but was still quite something – the performance of a winger rather than a defender. When he moved to Manchester, it seemed that he’d forgotten to pack his goal habit: in 2020/21 he played 24 times for United without scoring. Last night, just when United really needed it, Telles discovered his inner Roberto Carlos and hit the sweetest volley you will ever see.
Lingard wasn’t the only sub who made his mark. His assist for Ronaldo sprang from two exceptional pre-assists (one day, these will get logged too). Fred, sent on to replace Telles at left-back, floated over a fine cross for Ronaldo to head down to Lingard. Fred was fed by a simple ball from Bruno Fernandes, who picked up a pass from Edinson Cavani that required a spectacular amount of work. United had played a wayward long ball forward, looking for Ronaldo, who was too tired or too grand to chase it. Cavani, seeing a glimmer of an opportunity, sprinted about 50 yards and nicked the ball off an astonished defender. Ronaldo, for all his genius, plays like a 36-year-old, saving his energy for the big moments, letting Bruno Fernandes do his pressing for him (on the pitch map, they often end up in the same place). Cavani doesn’t play like a 34-year-old: he presses as eagerly as Mason Greenwood, who is 15 years his junior. United keep being labelled a bunch of individuals, not a proper team, but that run bore the stamp of an individual who’s also a team player.