Jesse Lingard has returned to the form he showed when England reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, but admits before giving a loan to West Ham, he thought of quitting football. The 28-year-old striker’s form diminished after the World Cup, losing his place in Manchester United’s first team. Jesse Lingard said on the YouTube talk show “Presenting” that his mental health had deteriorated because he was thinking of taking or at least taking a leave from sports.
“I could have easily left the blockade (due to the coronavirus epidemic in March last year).” “I could be like ‘Nah, I don’t want to do that, I gave up, I gave up.” “But my inner struggle always brings me back to life. He doesn’t give up football, just a break, really. I was playing happily, sitting on the bench and this is not me. “
Lingard has been transformed after United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer allowed him to join West Ham. He regained his place in the England squad as his mobility was a major factor behind the Hammers which was not a challenge for a place in the Champions League the following season. However, Jesse Lingard said that he could not focus on football properly before the move and had mental health issues.
“My mind wasn’t there, I wasn’t focused at all,” he said. “I was thinking about other things and obviously I was doing everything to try to play football, you are tense, you are tense and you can’t do it.”
“There were some days when I used to play at 8 in the night and go to the hotel in the afternoon, sleep two to four, close the curtains in the dark, then wake up in the dark and get no sun.”
“So I was advised by doctors, as soon as you wake up in the morning, jump out of bed, open the curtains and even small things can really change your outlook. I was not Jesse Lingard”
Lingard finally approached Solskjear to accept his inner turmoil in 2019 but did not start a first-team match for more than a year until he was loaned to West Ham.
He said, “I guess you are not the same person, I think I will not be Jesse Lingard. Even in football matches, I felt that the game was passing by me as if I didn’t want to be there – it was crazy.”
“I opened at United and told them what I am going through, what my mother is doing and I am always there to help. I had other doctors who helped, which was great and I gathered my head during the blockade.”
Lingard says that the spark that had come out of the blockage had ignited the security again and returned to the person he was. “I think the blockage has changed me in a way,” he said. “I look at my old games, the World Cup games, and the old games I’ve played, and I think ‘Yes, this is the real Lingard.”
When I finally opened up and everyone understood that it was like “Oh, that’s why, then all I have to do now is turn my head back, help football and my mother and I don’t have anything else. “
