Credit: Imago

Daniel Lewis

Tue 12 September 2023 15:10, UK

David Moyes confirmed on Tuesday [12 September] that West Ham have still yet to offer free agent Jesse Lingard a contract.

The former Manchester United player has been training with the Hammers for the past three weeks and played in a behind-closed-doors friendly with Ipswich Town last week.

While Lingard’s fitness has “improved greatly” since he first started training with the club, in the view of Moyes, United are seemingly still not in a position to bring him on board.

Speaking to talkSPORT, Moyes added that “there’s no real update on it at the moment, but just to say he’s getting much closer to the level of fitness you’d hope he would have.”

The concern for Lingard and Moyes at this stage, though, is that West Ham have to submit their 25-man squad list by 2pm on Wednesday [13 September].

That effectively means they have a day to decide if Lingard is going to be in a position to bolster their squad for the season ahead.

Special permission to add players can be given by the Premier League beyond that cut-off point, but let’s face it: if Lingard has yet to prove himself worthy of a contract over the past three weeks, surely that is not going to change now?

The brutal truth is that it will make little difference to West Ham whether or not Lingard makes the cut.

It would be great to have the Lingard of 2020-21 who lit up the London Stadium in the second half of that campaign; less so the Lingard of the two seasons since then.

Ultimately, it is Lingard himself who could be the biggest victim in all this as he seemingly has all his eggs in one basket at this stage if he intends to find a Premier League club.

The most likely option now is a move abroad, with Major League Soccer previously being touted as a possible destination.

One way or another, West Ham’s stance will be made official in the next 24 hours.

In other West Ham news, journalist Luke Edwards says the Hammers “won’t be at all happy” with a transfer development at the London Stadium.