Lingard: Manchester United win sends out message to title rivals
MANCHESTER United forward Jesse Lingard
believes the last-gasp winner against Watford on
Saturday sent out a strong statement of intent to
their title rivals.
While Arsenal slipped up at West Brom and
Manchester City were thrashed by Liverpool,
United dug out a 2-1 victory at Vicarage Road
thanks to an injury-time own goal from Troy
Deeney.
Deeney thought he had snatched a draw when he
cancelled out Memphis Depay's opener with an
87th-minute penalty, but the Hornets captain
undid his good work by bundling in Bastian
Schweinsteiger's shot-cum-cross minutes later.
Arsenal and City's defeats mean Louis van Gaal's
side move second in the table, one point behind
Leicester, and Lingard believes the gutsy win
delivered a psychological blow in the race at the
top.
"It's massive," Lingard told ManUtd.com. "It's a
bit of a statement to the other teams, who will
look at this and see we've won. It puts a bit
more pressure on them, but it's a good feeling to
be back up there.
"It was a great way to end the game. I thought it
was a scrappy match overall, the conditions
didn't help, but we had to keep our concentration
throughout and it's great to get the win.
"There are a lot of games coming up, we've got
a lot of injuries at the moment and have to adapt
to that, I thought we did that well today. As long
as we win as many games as we can over
Christmas, I think we'll be fine."
It has been an encouraging fortnight for Lingard,
who has now started all of United's last three
matches as well as earning a late call-up to Roy
Hodgson's England squad for the game against
France.
The 22-year-old was lively on Saturday too,
occupying Watford's defence with a number of
dangerous runs in behind while combining well
with fill-in forward Depay.
Van Gaal praised both players after the match
but Lingard thought he should have put the game
to bed before Schweinsteiger forced Deeney's
error.
"We created a lot of chances, and personally I
should have scored a couple of clear-cut
chances," Lingard said.
"I've obviously got to work on that but it's great
to see Basti at the back post to stick one in at
the end. It's been a long time coming for him,
and he's deserved it."
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