Sam Allardyce has told talkSPORT he would have threatened to boot Jesse Lingard out of the Manchester United team by now over his poor form.
However, Drivetime host Adrian Durham believes the midfielder ‘doesn’t get the credit he deserves’ from pundits and fans.
Lingard has come under fresh scrutiny for a damning stat surfaced on social media highlighting his lack of goals and assists.
The England international has suffered a largely barren 12 months, managing just four goals and two assists last season. That flurry came back in December and he hasn’t found the net since.
Many United fans have called for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to drop Lingard from his first-team, having started both of their opening Premier League games against Chelsea and Wolves.
But Allardyce says he would have had a serious conversation with the midfielder about his form a long time ago.
“From a personal point of view and a manager’s point of view, the warning signs would have been bought up by now,” Big Sam told the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast.
“The player would have been called in and I would have said to him, ‘you haven’t got a lot of time to put this right before your place is taken by somebody else’.
“As a manager you have to be ruthless, you have to make these decisions and you have to try to explain to a player in the best way you can.
“At Manchester United Lingard has got to be an eight-to-ten goal a season man in his position, and maybe six or eight assists as well I would think.”
Many supporters – as you can hear in the clip above – believe Lingard’s time in the first-team is up, as they are not happy over his lack of contribution in the final third for a player on £100,000-a-week.
A talkSPORT caller even branded him a ‘waste of space’ in attack and blasted his ‘ridiculously, ridiculously poor’ record.
He also highlighted the fact Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold got 12 assists in the Premier League last season – the same number Lingard has managed in his entire career in a United shirt.
But Durham believes Lingard is being harshly criticised and has been ‘killed by stats’, saying his efforts on the pitch are unappreciated.
“I think he’s been a little hard done by some of the post-match criticism,” said the Drivetime host.
“He’s also been killed by stats. We’ve all seen this stat that basically says he does nothing in every single game, which is obviously a load of rubbish.
“Is he a team player who doesn’t get the credit he deserves because he doesn’t do the spectacular?
“He needs to deliver more. His career tally at Manchester United in all competitions is 29 goals in 169 games. In just the Premier League he has 17 goals in 113 games, and he’s never got double figures in a Premier League season.
“But the thing with Jesse Lingard is he has delivered on a couple of big occasions, there are positives with him and the fact he was scoring goals when Solskjaer first got the job as caretaker tell you something is in there, it can’t all be a negative.
“There are a lot of people saying just bin him off, get rid, he’s like Tom Cleverley, just because he’s come through the academy – but isn’t there a bit more to him?
“You don’t last at Manchester United this long if you really aren’t a good player, surely.”
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